Film reviews: Shelter | Primate
After a storm-lashed opening on a never-named island in the Outer Hebrides, Shelter settles into the familiar beats of a by-the-numbers action movie, writes Alistair Harkness
Shelter (15) ★★
Primate (18) ★★
Jason Statham’s new film Shelter begins on an unpopulated, never-named island in the Outer Hebrides where his taciturn character, Mason, lives in a decommissioned lighthouse. As with recent Statham opuses such as The Beekeeper and Working Man, that means his character is ex-military and will soon be called upon to save some random innocent person who gets in the way of his former employers. In this case, though, the setup is a bit creepy, built as it is around Mason saving a teenage girl called Jesse from a storm (she’s played by Bodhi Rae Breathnach), then effectively keeping her prisoner instead of taking her to a hospital like a normal person.
Of course we’re not supposed to infer anything untoward in his intentions, but given the barely written status of the script, it’s still a relief when Shelter suddenly morphs into a Bourne knock-off with the arrival of a slippery intelligence chief (played by Bill Nighy) with his own off-the-books MI5 kill squad.
Thenceforth the film settles into the familiar beats of a by-the-numbers Statham actioner, one that lets him don a chunky-knit cardigan to stab, shoot and throat-punch his way through a slew of bad guys as Mason and Jesse make their way from Stornoway to London. Those of us holding out for Statham’s John Wick or Leon might have to accept the fact that 2013’s Safe was his best shot.
As unpretentious animal attack B-movies go, Primate boasts some inventively gruesome kills and one genuinely innovative suspense sequence. The former mostly involves its rabid chimpanzee antagonist ripping the faces off an assortment of barely clothed Gen Z party animals at a pool party; the latter features CODA Oscar-winner Troy Katsur (playing a deaf crime novelist) wandering through his luxury home late at night, unaware that the pet chimp that his linguistics professor wife raised as a part of their family is actually running riot behind him trying to kill his daughters.
Sadly, the rest of this 90-minute primate-fronted slasher movie proves a bit of a slog thanks to co-writer/director Johannes Roberts’ that’ll-do approach to the plot and characters.
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