Safe

Safe was a 2012 action film starring Jason Statham and Catherine Chan. It was a film directed by Boaz Yakin, who also wrote it. It puzzles me how this movie has not earned enough money to even recover the costs that went to production. That's a huge shame because it was a pretty good film. I know it's been showing in theaters for a while now in several locations. However, it's the first week of showing of it here (if I'm not mistaken) and I'm glad I caught it. 

To be honest, I had mediocre expectations after I saw that it didn't do very well in the box office and the critics didn't love it. However, I've never relied on those things to measure a film. I have always felt that critics are way too critical at times, and box office don't necessarily reflect the quality of a film. I always have to see it before I can even make any conclusion; so despite the not very promising things I saw, I still went ahead and watched the movie. 

The story was a little simple, yet a little confusing. It was all tied up well in the end, but at the beginning, it was hard to follow what was going on. It had the Russians, the Chinese, the police and it was all very chaotic at times. Things picked up though, marked by the meeting of Statham's character, an ex-MMA fighter who got caught with a conflict against the Russians, and Chan;s character, an eleven year old Chinese girl smuggled into the United States to be a counter. The film then followed how their relationship grow, and how they face enemies from all sides. They managed to crack the code, get what was involved and provide a happy ending to their story. 

The choreography of the action scenes of the movie was very impressive. That covers everything from hand to hand combat to gun fights. There were a lot of fight scenes (after all, Safe was an action movie) but each had a different approach to it, and a different feel. Everything was very exciting though. Also, as I've mentioned before, I like a good car chase scene, and this movie had one. It even got accompanied by Mei's (Chan) wits and charm. I chuckled when she accused Statham's character as being crazy.

The movie had flaws but it was a pretty good movie. I expected an action movie and I got exactly that and even more. It had a rough guy and a charming kid as leads, what could possibly go wrong? But seriously, it was pretty good, and it was amazing to watch all those sequences. It also had a strong supporting cast which  gave the movie an authentic feel to it. I can tell you that I left the movie place satisfied.