By Dan Skip Allen

January is usually the month that movies go to die. Studios put their films that they don’t have much confidence in there. Sometimes awards Contenders get wider releases as well. Lately,  the last few years, this has also been a month for Jason Statham movies to be released. “The Bee Keeper”, “A Working Man,” and now “Shelter” have all been released in the month of January. It has always been a month I have held near and dear to my heart, but not for that reason. Somehow, though, January has turned into a great month for Statham films because this is the third one in three years that has been pretty good.

Statham plays a man named Michael Mason. A recluse on an island off of the coast of Scotland. The only contact he has with the outside world is from an ex-military friend of his who brings him supplies every week. The man sends his niece to do the deliveries, but when a nasty storm rolls in while they are at sea, the unthinkable happens. The man is drowned to death after his boat capsizes. The little girl Jesse (Bodhi Rae Breathnatch) is rescued by Statham’s character. He nurses her back to health but at a cost. Unbeknownst to him, he gets noticed by a new fangled detection software known as T.H.E.A. This starts a series of events that he can’t stop from happening unless some blood and guts are spilled and bodies start to pile up as he tries to protect this young girl.

The name Ric Roman Waugh may sound familiar to readers of this review. The reason is this is the second film he’s directed that has come out this month. The first was Greenland 2: Migration. The sequel to the popular Gerard Butler geo political action film Greenland. Waugh isn’t exactly a household name, but he does have a number of films under his belt. He primarily worked with Butler of late in the Has Fallen series and other films, but Shelter is the first time he’s worked with Jason Statham.  As indicated by the kinds of movies he’s made in his career, this film is right up his alley, and Statham is the kind of guy he likes to work with. I wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t do more action films together in the future. Because this was a pretty good collaboration.

Statham has made a name for himself in the action game with The Transporter franchise, Crank, the Fast & Furious

 franchise and many others, but these small indie action films that he does his best character work. He allowed me to be a brooding loner, which is where I like him the best. Even though he’s doing the Lone Wolf and Cub stick here, he still gives off the blooding loner vibe. Once again, he’s very believable in this role as an ex-mi6 special forces operative hiding from the world. I could watch him in movies like this every year around this time if that’s what he has decided to do with his career. He made a career at it, and he’s good at it. I really enjoyed his whole persona in this movie quite a bit. His relationship with the girl was quite good as well.

With any Statham movie, you’re going to get a number of action set pieces, and this one has a few fans of the genre have seen before. There is a car chase through mud wooded roads, numerous fight sequences at secluded farm houses, the island, and at a crowded nightclub. The whole time the film is going on, there is an agent that is following Statham and the girls’ characters, and he is a trained killer. Statham and him have a few encounters throughout the course of the movie. That’s in addition to all the other action scenes in the film. The movie starts out slow but picks up very quickly and never lets up until the end. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed all of this. It kept me entertained throughout.

Besides Statham and the young girl, there is a decent supporting cast in this movie. Both Naomi Ackie and Bill Nighy play various sides of the spy game. One was the boss of MI6 who recently retired but isn’t retired, and the other is currently running operatives and keeping an eye on things on a daily basis. She was the other’s replacement. Between the both of them, they took up a lot of screen time. I found them serviceable in regard to the story as a whole. The young girl played by Breathnatch was good as well. She mainly cried and had her emotions because of what she was going through, but I liked her opposite Statham.  I thought they had a nice chemistry together. As a newcomer, she was quite a nice addition to this cast. I won’t be surprised to see her pop up in more films in the future. She was pretty good here.

Shelter was another one of those January throwaway Statham action films that you think aren’t going to be any good but turns out better than you think. Statham does what Statham always does. He brings his brooding loner sense of personality to the role, but by the end of the movie, you care about his character and the story he was a part of. This time, it’s the Lone Wolf and Cub trope film and television fans have seen so much lately. In this case, it’s done right, and so because of that, it worked for me. The action scenes were exciting, and the supporting cast was serviceable. Waugh has turned into a director you can count on to deliver a decent action film that you don’t have to think too much about except to sit back and enjoy.

3 ½ stars