Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

Crappy film

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

If you watch closely the films which J.S plays in, you will notice that movie was the first one, before HUMMING BIRD and PARKER, which the directors were absolutely not action movies film makers, not at all. And as far as J.S is above all an action actor, I found that unusual and interesting. In this very movie SAFE, you have some lines and shots that may seem offbeat for such items, for instance a shot from the Inside of a car, in the same manner as Joseph Lewis's GUN CRAZY. Not a masterpiece, this J.S feature, but not his worst for sure.

I was looking for a movie where a down and outer overcomes the bad guys. I had heard of the Statham movies, but never watched one where he was the lone star. I had seen The Expendables, which was action hero overload. This movie was free on Prime, so I said, why not. The story line was pretty straight forward, with multiple warring factions, and Statham in the middle, having a history with all of them. Of course, he has some expert military past that is alluded to. As the story develops, he attempts to rescue himself by rescuing this little Chinese girl, Mei. Of course, this means a lot of people get killed and he does most of the killing. Statham has a pretty good screen presence, pretty cool. This movie reminded me a little of the Charles Bronson Death Wish movies, except Statham is physically much more powerful.If you want to see good kick the stuffing out of evil, with not much plot, and some exciting fighting, this will suit you fine. I wish Amazon would make other Statham movies free for Prime too - there's a very small choice at this point.

Now I do like Jason Statham and I do believe he can do good films such as Snatch and the Expendables, however, this is not one of them in my opinion. The story sees Luke an ex cop cage fighter lose everything and have nothing to live for until he meets a young Chinese and is given a new mission in life. Now as I said I do like Statham and he is okay in this film especially in the action scenes, but sometimes he seems a bit lazy in his role and occasionally like he is phoning it in. The girl he teams up with does a good job in the role even though her character is a complete stereotype, but she has good good chemistry with Statham. But the rest of the supporting cast are paper thin and cliché with none of the Russian, Chinese or corrupt cops providing good characters. The story is bad with just way too many unnecessary plot twists that you will not care about. Also there are just too many villains in this film that none of them are interesting at all which takes away from the conflict. The script is also not very good with the dialogue seeming comic book like from the villains and the delivery from Statham isn't what it usually is. The style is easily the best part of the film with the action scenes being great and all the action being top notch, plus the sound design is great which makes every gunshot and blow feel harder then it is. Overall I have no interest in seeing this film again which is a disappointment.

I just about remembered the title of this because of the leading actor in it, and this was rated reasonably well by critics as three out of five stars, so I was up for watching it, directed by Boaz Yakin (Remember the Titans). Basically in China little girl Mei (Catherine Chan) is a maths genius is abducted by the Chinese Triads, their boss Han Jiao (James Hong) wants to use the memory skills of the young human computer, she is taken and cared by brutal gangster Quan Chang (Reggie Lee), and they travel to Chinatown in New York City. In the city is ex- cop and cage fighter Luke Wright (Jason Statham) who had his life destroyed after winning a fixed fight and accidentally killing his opponent, this angered Russian Mafia head Emile Docheski (Sándor Técsy) who sent his son Vassily (Joseph Sikora) to kill Luke's pregnant wife, and since then he has become an alcoholic homeless tramp with no direction in life. A year later, Han Jiao wants Mei to memorise a long numerical code which holds the key to something precious, soon though she is abducted from the Chinese mob by the Russian Mafia, but she manages to escape, and is now on the run from the Russians, corrupt cops from the NYPD and the Triads, but a cleaned up Luke notices her in trouble and protects her. Hiding in a hotel Mei explains the numerical code to Luke, he realises it is the combination to a safe, Quan manages to catch up with Mei using a tracking device and she is taken again, but Luke gets in contact with other mob types to kidnap Vassily, and he threatens Docheski unless he explains where the safe is and what is inside it. Docheski explains that the code is for a safe containing $30,000,000, there is also a second safe with unknown contents, needing a team to get to and crack the safe Luke recruits Captain Wolf (Robert John Burke) and his detectives, they agree Luke runs the show as he has also memorised the combination and they split the money between. The team manage to fight the numerous Triad gangsters and get to the safe, but as Luke is about to open Wolf tries to betray him, but he kills the remaining detectives and kidnaps Wolf, putting him in the boot of the car alongside Vassily. Mei is rescued after Luke bribes Alex Rosen (Anson Mount), who works for Mayor Tremello (Chris Sarandon), and who reveals the second safe belong to the mayor and contains a disc with data on his corrupt deals, while Alex kills Quan and his men, with Mei watching. Luke retrieves a copy of the disc, but he will not let Alex have it and suggests a fight for it, but before they can start Mei shoots and wounds Alex, with Luke finishing him off, he gives Wolf $50,000 and instructs him to return Vassily to his father, the rest of the money is sent to Han to buy Mei's freedom, he threatens his operations if he tries to get Mei back, Han leaves New York angered and Luke hides copies of the disc all over the city, Mei asks if they are finally safe, Luke says that they just take it one day at a time. Also starring Sándor Técsy as Emile Docheski, Igor Jijikine as Chemyakin, James Colby as Detective Mears, Matt O'Toole as Detective Lasky, Jack Gwaltney as Detective Reddick, Barry Bradford as Detective Benoit and Jay Giannone as Detective Kolfax. Statham does his usual deadpan hero as well as you'd expect, Chan is cute as the young brain box who needs his protection, I admit some of chatty sequences are a tiny bit complicated and slow the pace down a little, but the small heist element, martial arts fight sequences and chases make up for it, not a bad action thriller. Worth watching!