I decided to watch Safe after feeling a little bored with the big name classic action films and wanting something new.
I was woefully underwhelmed by a lot of aspects to this movie.
That said there are some good points that I'm going to start off making and eventually end on. Like a bad news sandwich. Statham was perfect in his role as Luke, he brought the poorly written and developed character an edge that was borderline heroic in the surroundings of this poorly shot travesty.
Which brings me to my first bad point, the camera-work was nothing less than infuriating. I found myself genuinely angry in every single action sequence, regardless of whether it were a hand to hand fight sequence, a gun battle or a car chase. The shot flicks about more times than you can count and I found myself with absolutely no idea who was dead, who was alive and who was punching who. I understand this is to attempt to create a heightened sense of involvement but it makes them nigh impossible to understand. This is perfectly displayed during the gun battle prior to Statham opening the safe. Every time I saw someone get hit I had no idea who it was. The point where there were breaks in the action I was consciously checking how many of the cops were remaining. I should know at any point in the sequence how many of them are left or there's no tension and I ultimately don't care about what's happening on screen.
I could continue but I'll move on.
There were various plot points that made absolutely no sense to me whatsoever. I'll use the aforementioned gun battle as an example to keep spoilers down. The fight itself is moronic, these top police names basically walk into a den of some kind (I think it was a casino but at this late stage I was basically in a coma) and shoot the place up, then walk off with a fat bag of money. Not one of them stops and says "hang on, what if someone asks us what are in these large suspicious bags we're carrying, what if they ask us why we conducted a raid unauthorized, with no backup whatsoever, as 5 of the top cops in the NYPD and 1 ex cop who should be jailed for firearms offenses." As I say this is just one of many examples I could make but once again, I'll cut myself short for the sake of some last hope towards brevity.
I didn't care about any of the characters. The girl isn't on screen enough to make me care about her, and she mostly comes across as a rude, arrogant and unintelligible know it all due to speaking mandarin half the time and generally just being a prick to people holding a gun in her face. Statham, as much as he performed well, was written as the rogue with the heart of gold by someone hemorrhaging from the brain, apparently. The only time this comes across is his inexplicable and borderline paedophilic longing to save an 11 year old girl who he essentially uses for his own means throughout the film. He barely shows any emotion for the loss of his wife and he is almost endlessly killing men (and women who shoot at him) throughout the film without any show of remorse for the removal of human life he perpetually conducts.
I am genuinely struggling to think of a second good point to end on. I was going to say that the film will most likely entertain the majority of the people who watch it. However that's not true, because the action sequences, the only thing that could save this film, are far too vague and unwatchable to entertain the majority of action lovers (I myself enjoy watching martial arts, be it choreographed or not, a great deal). Coupled with the acting essentially being none existent due to the large amount of screen time these tour de forces in bad cinematography eat away and you have a very very boring film.
I was woefully underwhelmed by a lot of aspects to this movie.
That said there are some good points that I'm going to start off making and eventually end on. Like a bad news sandwich. Statham was perfect in his role as Luke, he brought the poorly written and developed character an edge that was borderline heroic in the surroundings of this poorly shot travesty.
Which brings me to my first bad point, the camera-work was nothing less than infuriating. I found myself genuinely angry in every single action sequence, regardless of whether it were a hand to hand fight sequence, a gun battle or a car chase. The shot flicks about more times than you can count and I found myself with absolutely no idea who was dead, who was alive and who was punching who. I understand this is to attempt to create a heightened sense of involvement but it makes them nigh impossible to understand. This is perfectly displayed during the gun battle prior to Statham opening the safe. Every time I saw someone get hit I had no idea who it was. The point where there were breaks in the action I was consciously checking how many of the cops were remaining. I should know at any point in the sequence how many of them are left or there's no tension and I ultimately don't care about what's happening on screen.
I could continue but I'll move on.
There were various plot points that made absolutely no sense to me whatsoever. I'll use the aforementioned gun battle as an example to keep spoilers down. The fight itself is moronic, these top police names basically walk into a den of some kind (I think it was a casino but at this late stage I was basically in a coma) and shoot the place up, then walk off with a fat bag of money. Not one of them stops and says "hang on, what if someone asks us what are in these large suspicious bags we're carrying, what if they ask us why we conducted a raid unauthorized, with no backup whatsoever, as 5 of the top cops in the NYPD and 1 ex cop who should be jailed for firearms offenses." As I say this is just one of many examples I could make but once again, I'll cut myself short for the sake of some last hope towards brevity.
I didn't care about any of the characters. The girl isn't on screen enough to make me care about her, and she mostly comes across as a rude, arrogant and unintelligible know it all due to speaking mandarin half the time and generally just being a prick to people holding a gun in her face. Statham, as much as he performed well, was written as the rogue with the heart of gold by someone hemorrhaging from the brain, apparently. The only time this comes across is his inexplicable and borderline paedophilic longing to save an 11 year old girl who he essentially uses for his own means throughout the film. He barely shows any emotion for the loss of his wife and he is almost endlessly killing men (and women who shoot at him) throughout the film without any show of remorse for the removal of human life he perpetually conducts.
I am genuinely struggling to think of a second good point to end on. I was going to say that the film will most likely entertain the majority of the people who watch it. However that's not true, because the action sequences, the only thing that could save this film, are far too vague and unwatchable to entertain the majority of action lovers (I myself enjoy watching martial arts, be it choreographed or not, a great deal). Coupled with the acting essentially being none existent due to the large amount of screen time these tour de forces in bad cinematography eat away and you have a very very boring film.