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50Statham is still playing it safe in Safe, but vulnerability is showing through the cracks.
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60With Yakin's all-action plot operating like clockwork, an on-song Statham proves anything but expendable in a genre he dominates. Predictable, sure, but equally pleasurable.
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May 3, 201275There's a back story to this, and it's actually sort of witty.
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38Writer-director Boaz Yakin delivers his conflicting elements mostly as intended, and with obvious ambition. But he fails to take care of certain fundamentals - most problematically, coaxing out the emotion he's seeking from Statham and young newcomer Catherine Chan.
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80A rough, exhausting, exhilarating action picture with a payoff which would have delighted Sam Fuller or Howard Hawks. The Stath - an actual Olympian, remember - is on top form.
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Apr 27, 201275There are zero surprises, but it looks good, moves well through a trim running time and wields its clichés with defiant aplomb.
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Apr 27, 201250Safe bangs along respectably enough, all thrown fists and cheeky comments, but it never feels like more than a second-tier video game brought to life.
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50Love the kid though, and Statham too – it takes a star with quality to be so rock solid in a crumbling yarn.
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50None of this bears much or any resemblance to the real world, but the violence crunches, the editing snaps and the humorous one-liners pop at well-timed junctures.
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58The character-building is proffered in bad faith, like every scene in Safe that doesn't involve bloodshed. Statham can sell a punch, but not his own vulnerability.
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75Boaz Yakin's slick direction, marked by quick cuts, unstinting energy and a lack of sentimentality, makes the action scenes satisfying. But he's a better director than writer.
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Apr 26, 201250Now, if only someone would offer this actor a project worthy of the full range of his talent.
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75The violence has the straightforward, unflinching characteristic evident in "Reservoir Dogs" and "Pulp Fiction," although Yakin's dialogue falls considerably short of Tarantino's, both in terms of substance and offbeat humor.
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70There's nothing terribly original about Safe, but it's a suitably grimy playground for action cinema's reigning pit bull.
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55It has neither the Red Bull–fueled crudeness of "Crank" nor the Frenchified lunatic vitality of the "Transporter" movies; it's not even as cheaply entertaining as the generic hit-man retread "The Mechanic." Safe shows Statham comfortably treading water, proving all the things he no longer needs to prove.
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20Safe arrives filled with bombast and sneers but barely any thrills.
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90Safe is both a slavish imitation of cinema gone by and a movie for our time. I found it wickedly entertaining and perversely refreshing in its total lack of contemporary piety.
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40Enough already with the pointless gun battles that litter Safe like spent syringes in a shooting gallery. No matter how spastically you edit them, you'll never top John Woo's early work, or, for that matter, Sam Peckinpah's. Aim higher, even if it means fewer hits.
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Apr 25, 201250Though Safe initially seems a little darker and more thoughtful than the British star's previous comic-book escapades in "Death Race," "The Expendables" or the "Transporter" trilogy, it ultimately reverts to testosterone-heavy formula.
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70Statham probably isn't going to be doing Shakespeare anytime soon. But everybody ought to be good at something, and when it comes to this kind of thing, Statham is very good, indeed.
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58Safe has more action than intrigue (or logic), and it's boilerplate vicious. It may satisfy Statham's fans, but they - like he - would do well to enlarge their expectations.
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Apr 24, 201270A preposterously enjoyable - or enjoyably preposterous - action-thriller.
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60You can't help feeling that an initially adventurous movie has had its rough edges sanded away.
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50What starts out crisp and promising gives way to a conventional shoot-'em-up in Safe, a fast-paced but extremely familiar vehicle for Jason Statham, who can only carry the material so far on his brawny shoulders.
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63Safe's primary contribution to the burgeoning Jason-Statham-kicks-everyone's-ass subgenre is setting three of its set pieces in crowded New York City venues (a subway car, a hotel dining room, and a Chinatown nightclub) where shootouts lead to believable mass-exodus pandemonium.