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.

This film tells the story of a fighter in trouble with the mobsters because he fought other than he was told to. He was driven to the point of suicide, but is saved by a girl with photographic memory who holds an important piece of information. They help each other navigate the dangerous underworld."Safe" is a very good old school action film. The characters really fight hard, and they keep fighting throughout the film. There is no fancy effects or crazy explosions, they fight only using their fists and guns. It's been a while since I watched a no frills action film. The number of deaths is disturbing but it doesn't feel ridiculous like some films where the lead hero is invincible. The girl who plays the whiz kid is really good in her role, she's very believable. I enjoyed the film. The title is very clever too!

Sadly a victim of poor-to-no marketing pre-release, this fantastic action thriller did not find an audience theatrically, though the word-of-mouth was uniformly damning with high praise (not faint). Everyone wanted a PG-13 actioner at the time, and got confused at Yakin (Remember the Titans) being behind-the-scenes, and did not know what to expect. It was something which could've been fixed by smart marketing, esp. in a world stuck to the internet but no, they almost released this direct to video, and both fans of the genre, fans of the star possibly missed out on a very engaging, balls-to-the-wall (soft) R-rated actioner, that's one of the better genre things that Statham has done, and is yet to better.A kinda throwback to the 80s and 90s thrillers, it almost feels like something Shane Black would've written. The flashbacks, and flashback-within-flashbacks structure, for a change, works very well, and this flick possibly has one of the longest setups ever in this kind of a movie, running close to the 1st 30 minutes. Miss even 5 of those, and you'll think you have it figured later, but would do better to revisit the minutes you missed initially.The casting is pitch-perfect, with Statham and everyone else (esp. the heavies) playing to their strengths. The biggest strength this movie has going for it, aside from the fact that there's a genuine sense of urgency and dread in each and every sequence, aside from the fact that everyone's playing it seriously and nothing's for a laugh, is the fantastic action choreography, perhaps the best yet this side of a Bourne movie. You could have had Daniel Craig or Liam Neeson playing the lead, and neither star wouldn't be outa place in this action thriller.Lean and mean, and packed with moments that have unexpected payoffs, this is one for repeated viewings. In fact, I'm writing this after having watched this for the 4th time, with my first 2 viewings being at the cinema, thankfully with a like-minded audience. Perfect, and I do hope it has a decent life at least on video. I, for one, got optimistic after viewing this, but was let down by most of Statham's choices after.

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!