“I gotchu. It’s okay. I gotchu.”

Story: Mason lives alone in a lighthouse, and he likes it that way. No matter how often young Jesse tries to befriend him, Mason ignores her kindness. But when a vicious storm hits, leaving her uncle and his boat pulled under and Jesse on the brink of death, Mason saves her. Hooray! Though her foot is infected from the storm. Boo! So he goes to the mainland to get her Neosporin. Yay! And then the folks that Mason has been hiding from find out where he is thanks to way too many monitored cameras. Oh no…

Genre I’d put it in:
Release Date: 2026
Remake, Sequel, Based-On, or Original:

Gotta say: As soon as I see Jason Statham helmijg a film, I immediately think “Oh yeah, this is gonna be fun.” (Just pretend Meg 2 doesn’t exist. I’ve been doing it for years.) Shelter isn’t the adrenaline rush of some of Statham’s earlier work, but for this wintry time of year, the season works perfectly to help you feel the chill and solitude of the main characters.

A blend of Léon: The Professional, Man on Fire, and John Wick, mixed with vibes from samurai stories like Lone Wolf and Cub, Shelter is better than it’s familiar story should be. That’s thanks to winning performances by Statham and Bodhi Rae Breathnach as on-the-run duo Mason and Jesse.

The somber tone mixed with the father/daughter dynamic AND the action delivers a film that’s intriguing enough to keep watching, but only just. Statham and Breathnach as Jesse effortlessly kept me engaged even though in any other instance I should have clocked out due to the uneven (and at times sluggish) pacing and tropes that are so well worn you could fall asleep mid-film and not get lost. The blend of bulcolic Scottish countryside and vicious action is an interesting dichotomy, though judicious editing could have turned this hour and fifty minute gloomy affair into a more whipsmart, energized one. I really hope the two leads got huge bags, for all the heavy lifting they had to do. They make the plotting and dialogue feel honest and believable, even though it’s stuff you’ve seen and heard thousands of times before.

The cast is small; Statham, Breathnach, Bill Nighy as the Big Bad Spy Guy, and various other folks as members of MI6 who either try to help or hinder. IMDb doesn’t make things easy for me to figure out who’s who; as of my writing this, most actors listed don’t have character names beside them. But I do have to give a special shout-out to Naomi Ackie as the brand-new head of MI6, who ultimately butts heads with Nighy’s Big Bad. Ackie’s charisma leaps off the screen, an almost blinding bit of intensity compared to the rest of the film’s grim tone. I wanna see more from her; Ackie and Breathnach are the reason why I’d be up for a sequel. (Stick a pin in that bit.) Building up Ackie’s character while cutting back on the travelogue would have served to strengthen the “who will find them first” suspense, as well as build her character as she finds out what’s really going on. Opportunity, missed. Shelter also has Britain’s camera tracking system – called THEAR in this film – feels like Big Brother on steroids, and feels like a character in it’s own right. (I can only guess that it’s not that horrific in real life, though the film does take a moment to condemn the use of widespread tracking.)

It sounds like I’m damming this film with high praise for the performances, but honestly? Not really. Though action aficionados may whine at the gaps between the ol’ ultraviolence, the slower pace helps bond Mason and Jesse, and director Ric Roman Waugh’s work on the Greenland series has sharpened his ability to balance pathos with energetic fight scenes. It’s not perfect here, but it works more often than not. Our pair go from the Outer Hebredies, Scotland to London, England, with the travel feeling like the slog those two were going through. And while I feel like bits and pieces could have been excised to help things move faster, I understand what Waugh was trying to do. Though I do wish the cinematography had a bit more oomph; the drabness of the islands bleeds into the drabness of London, and the drabness of the climax. Some subtle differences between locations would have been nice.

The finale – Statham vs Nighy – may be complete boilerplate with dialogue that feels lifted whole cloth from earlier Bad Guy Makes Good movies. Still, these two sell it hard, making a fulfilling, if abrupt, climax. One final scene leaves things wide open for sequels, of course. But the bittersweet vibes hit me nonetheless. So, is Shelter worth your hard-earned? Do you like Statham? Is a Lone Wolf and Cub kind of narrative your jam? Do you not mind that the doggo dies early on, offscreen (though with the good boyo obviously playing dead later on)? Then dive in. Fair warning though; if you’re not already creeped out by the crazy way everything tracks everybody all the time? You will be after this.

#Protip: If the Outer Hebrides islands look amazing to you too, check them out here.