Shelter Review: Same Storm, Different Day

If it’s January, it must be time for another Jason Statham movie. For the past few years, Statham has planted his flag in the early weeks of the new year, and the results have been a coin flip. 2024 gave us the tightly wound The Beekeeper, which landed as an unexpected surprise with its Robin Hood retribution energy. 2025 delivered A Working Man, a Sylvester Stallone co-written effort so limp that the only memorable thing about it was the double entendre poster. So where does Shelter fall on the spectrum? Somewhere just above the middle line, enough to call it a watchable time at the movies.

Statham should probably stop pretending not to be who he actually is. In recent films, he’s played a construction worker and a beekeeper who both turned out to have secret pasts as lethal government operatives. Here, he’s a lighthouse keeper (at a decomissioned location) on a remote island in the Scottish Hebrides. Guess what? Secret lethal past. At this point, every Statham character is a variation of the same type that Clint Eastwood played in a string of westerns: the specialized man with no past who has removed himself from society, only to be pulled back in when trouble finds him.

We eventually learn his name is Michael Mason, though it takes about an hour before anyone says it aloud. Mason lives alone with an unnamed dog, playing chess against himself (chess, it’s always chess) and avoiding all human contact. A young girl named Jesse (Bodhi Rae Breathnach, Hamnet) delivers his supplies with her uncle, and when Mason tells her never to knock on his door again, you know exactly where this is going. When she nearly drowns in a storm, he saves her life. Venturing off the island for supplies to tend to her injuries, he’s spotted on a government tracking system.  Soon, a commando team storms his island with orders to kill him on sight and the action kicks into gear.

The villains here are led by Manafort (Bill Nighy, Living), Mason’s former MI6 superior at a hush-hush program known as Black Kite (which sounds an awful lot like a Beekeeper) who has framed him as a terrorist out of petty revenge. Nighy spends most of the film in thick-framed glasses, muttering to no one in particular while typing words he says aloud for our benefit into covert computer programs. Harriet Walter (And Mrs.) shows up briefly as a scheming Prime Minister. She’s barely in it, but she’s a recognizable name, so here we are. The new MI6 chief Roberta (Naomi Ackie, The Thursday Murder Club) barks orders at underlings while watching screens. It’s frustrating to see an actress as intriguing as Ackie relegated to such a stagnant role.  Or, rather, to see the back of her head, since much of the film is us watching her viewing a wall of monitors.

Stuntman turned director Ric Roman Waugh has experience with this territory, having helmed Angel Has Fallen, Greenland, and its sequel which was released three weeks ago. He knows how to stage action, and Shelter delivers plenty of shootouts, hand-to-hand combat, and chases. A nightclub brawl feels just a bit more realistic than the surreal one in the last John Wick, and Statham’s fights with hired operative Workman (Bryan Vigier, John Wick: Chapter 4) are well-choreographed. Matthew Newman‘s editing ensures these sequences are tight enough to show off the work the actors and stunt people put in.

Cinematographer Martin Ahlgren‘s work is standard stuff, with early shots of the Outer Hebrides looking appropriately drab and dreary. But there’s a textured quality to the film that makes it feel like watching something older that’s just been discovered before the screening. David Buckley‘s score mixes hypnotic repetition with soothing elements that tend to feel incongruous with the action, though that contrast can occasionally work in the film’s favor when it switches to purely action.

What distinguishes Shelter from the many Statham shoot-em-ups that have preceded it is Mason’s relationship with Jesse. Breathnach is quite good, and her scenes with Statham provide the film with a tender quality that might expand his fanbase beyond the usual action crowd. The girl trying to save the man as much as he’s trying to protect her isn’t exactly new territory, but it’s handled with enough care to register emotionally. Statham has shown he can step outside his comfort zone before, particularly in Spy where he got to be genuinely funny. I wish he’d do more of that instead of yearly retreads of the same character.

Now to the big question: is this another Statham stinker or success? I’d give the edge to success because it’s far more watchable than A Working Man. The action is competent, the emotional stakes land, and Breathnach ensures there’s someone worth caring about. It passes the time without being essential viewing. With Mutiny and The Beekeeper 2 already wrapped and awaiting release, Statham’s January tradition shows no signs of stopping. Audiences looking for something serviceable could do worse than taking shelter here.