NEW YORK (OSV News) – It takes nearly an hour of gunfire, car chases and flying fists for the plot of “Shelter” (Black Bear) to emerge. That it’s another of Jason Statham’s pictures in which he plays a brooding loner who eventually avenges old wrongs. Yet the film almost sneers at viewers for expecting exactly what they get.
As directed by Ric Roman Waugh from a script by Ward Parry, this actioner can also be seen as proof that, for all their staleness, recycled plots can encapsulate a moral core. But the audience has to penetrate the all-too-familiar vroom-vroom, bang-bang of the genre to identify it.
Statham is Michael Mason, an ex-government assassin. Michael once served MI6, the British foreign intelligence agency, as part of a group known as the Black Kites.
Having gone rogue in the eyes of his superiors, however, Michael has made himself scarce, living alone with his dog on a remote former lightkeeper’s island off the coast of Scotland. To keep his mind sane and orderly, Michael plays chess against himself.
He gets weekly deliveries of supplies from local lass Jessie (Bodhi Rae Breatnach). When her uncle’s boat sinks in a storm, Michael rescues Jessie and nurses her back to health.
While making a rare visit to the mainland to buy medicine, Michael is captured on camera. Of course, the all-seeing, all-knowing MI6 has long been monitoring all such cameras for just such an opportunity.
Gotcha!
There’s some initial confusion, though, since Michael, according to the agency’s records, was supposed to have been killed in action. Soon, nonetheless, teams of other assassins are making beach landings on his island refuge and Michael is instructing Jessie in weapons handling.
Plots along these lines necessarily require a sinister mastermind operating behind the scenes. In this instance, it’s Michael’s former handler, Manafort (Bill Nighy). He hovers in the background, confrontation looms, the body count rises steadily and — to quote the late, great Yogi Berra — it’s deja vu all over again.
The film contains mostly stylized gun, knife and physical violence with brief gore and fleeting rough language. The OSV News classification is A-III — adults. The Motion Picture Association rating is R — restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.
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