Jason Statham’s aging action hero shtick is bulletproof.
He even looks like a bullet, his bald head aimed at the baddies. You know he’ll always find his target. But in recent years, his movies have given us just enough novelty to make the familiar feel … new.
New-ish is more accurate.
“Shelter” starts with a novel concept but settles into the Statham formula with crushing speed. A taut cast flounders through action movie cliches while director Ric Roman Waugh reminds us how good his fight choreography can be, and there’s enough of it to keep our attention.
The story suggests so much more than merely Statham on autopilot.
Statham stars as Michael Mason, a loner who drinks away his life as a lighthouse operator. Except the lighthouse is no longer functional, so isolation is his endgame. He even pushes away a teen girl named Jessie (a wonderful Bodhi Rae Breathnach) who tries to connect with him while delivering his weekly supplies.
A brutal storm forces Mason to save Jessie from drowning, but her only family connection drowns in the waves. He takes her into his home, but in the process of rehabbing her from a leg injury alerts old foes that he’s no longer off the grid.
You see, Mason is a former Special Forces agent who went rogue, and he’s been in hiding for his own safety after defying orders (for the best of reasons, natch). If you’d seen a half dozen Statham movies, you can sketch out the rest.
Bill Nighy classes up the joint as a duplicitous bureaucrat, while Naomi Ackie is under-utilized as the new MI6 chief who is far less evil than he in the spy game.
The film’s opening scenes are patient and stark, suggesting Mason’s past rendered him unable to function in society. Did he lose his family or suffer a trauma so severe that he had to withdraw from the world?
That might have led to a different, more engaging story.
Instead, Mason is soon on the run, meeting old allies and trying to stay one step ahead of Nighy’s goons. Except, and this is the wacky part, Mason is the best of the best, an elite killing machine who can take down a small army without suffering a scratch.
Yeah, that felt fresh when John Rambo ransacked Smalltown USA in 1982’s “First Blood,” but in 2026 it’s approaching eyeroll fodder.
And while we’re able to accept Mason as a killing machine, his increasingly illogical escapes push the Credibility Meter, even for a genre film.
The film’s big selling point is the Mason/Jessie bond. The young actress is engaging and raw, and her connection to Mason is palpable despite an anemic script.
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The rest, of course, is Statham doing what he does best. He remains a flawless fighting machine, improvising against a wave of enemies with deadly intentions.
Sometimes.
He doesn’t always kill the goons out to erase him. He can’t decide if he’s a reluctant warrior or a vengeful killing machine. “Shelter” can’t, either. Sure, he spares hapless cops from his deadly wrath, but he must know some of the agents out for his blood have been misled.
Right?
Most of the action set pieces are perfectly fine but rote. A few are exceptional, including one battle with an unstoppable agent (Bryan Vigier) who essentially does the work Mason once did. That dynamic is another element with potential, but it’s mostly unexplored.
The two warriors share a moment late in the film that could have yielded something fascinating, but Waugh resorts to a typical resolution.
If this is your first Statham movie, “Shelter” will be both generic and engaging. For the actor’s fans, the action romp will quickly fade from memory while we wait for “The Beekeeper 2.”
HiT or Miss: “Shelter” finds Jason Statham taking out the trash, again, but you won’t pine for a sequel.