Shelter: Another solid Jason Statham thriller

Shelter (2026) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated R, for violence and profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.1.26

Check your dictionary for the word “laconic,” and you’ll find a photo of Jason Statham.

 

He has perfected the role of Hard-Bitten Loner, a guy whose penetrating, steely eyed gaze invariably is accompanied by a scowl that (and only Statham can pull this off) forever seems on the verge of softening into a thin, mocking smile.

 

Fleeing both local police and a stop-at-nothing assassin, Mason (Jason Statham) and
Jesse (Bodhi Rae Breathnach) scramble to find a working vehicle, as a means of escape.

His newest action thriller is a solid piece of spyjinks, thanks to Ward Parry’s intriguing script, Matthew Newman’s rat-a-tat editing, and director Ric Roman Waugh’s taut direction. This puppy moves.

But not immediately. Things begin quietly.

 

Mason (Statham) lives an isolated existence on a tiny, rocky lighthouse island off Scotland’s Outer Hebrides. His only companion is a soft-eyed dog with no name. Mason passes the time by gazing out to sea from the top of his lighthouse, playing chess against himself, consuming constant meals of porridge … and often drinking himself to sleep.

 

Supplies are delivered, on a regular basis, by a similarly grizzled fellow (Michael Shaeffer) who brings his small fishing vessel as close as possible; he then sends his niece, Jesse (Bodhi Rae Breathnach), to shore in a rowboat. This ritual apparently has been unchanged for a long time; she drops off a crate filled with provisions, collects the now-empty previous crate, and returns to her uncle.

 

This time, however, she impulsively leaves a small, gift-wrapped package atop the newly delivered crate.

 

It remains unopened, when she returns the next time. She confronts Mason; he closes the door in her face.

 

Alas, she doesn’t make it back to her uncle’s boat this time. The sea has turned rough, thanks to an approaching storm; Mason watches, in horror, as both boats are swallowed by waves. He manages to rescue Jesse, but her uncle drowns. She’s injured, with a badly sprained ankle.

 

Jesse tearfully reveals that her uncle was her sole family; she has lost everything. As the next few days pass, Mason — despite himself — cannot maintain his gruff reserve.

 

Meanwhile…

 

In London, MI6 head Stefen Manafort (Bill Nighy) is grilled by an oversight committee, regarding his deployment of an all-encompassing AI surveillance network — Total Human Engagement Analytics, or THEA — which scoops up data from every possible source: the ubiquitous street cameras, car cameras, smart phones and anything else in the “connectivity of everything.”

 

Manafort blandly assures the committee chair that THEA has allowed MI6 to enhance the elimination of potential terrorist activity; she sternly counters that surreptitiously harvesting the data of every British citizen is, well, illegal. (He clearly couldn’t care less.)

The Last Duel: Grimly absorbing medieval drama

The Last Duel (2021) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated R, for strong violence, sexual assault, graphic nudity and profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.15.21

Does actual truth exist?

 

Or is “truth” inevitably shaded by the perception and biases of the person claiming to present it?

 

Honoring a degree of chivalry neither man feels at this point, Jacques Le Gris (Adam
Driver, left) and Jean de Carrouges (Matt Damon) clasp hands prior to the duel that
will leave one of them dead.

Director Akira Kurosawa famously explored this notion with 1950’s Rashomon, in which numerous characters deliver subjective, alternative and contradictory versions of having witnessed the murder of a samurai. Actual “truth” proves to be elusive.

Scripters Nicole Holofcener, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon — adapting Eric Jager’s 2004 historical study of the same title — have taken a cue from Kurosawa, with their intriguing approach to director Ridley Scott’s lavish new film. The “last duel” refers to the last official judicial duel permitted by the French King (Charles VI, at the time) and the Parliament of Paris, which took place on Dec. 29, 1386.

 

(Let me pause, to acknowledge mild surprise; I’d have expected such duels to continue for many centuries beyond that date.)

 

The death match resulted from Norman knight Jean de Carrouges’s accusation that his wife, Marguerite, had been raped by squire Jacques Le Gris, who denied the charge. When existing legal options for redress were thwarted by Count Pierre d’Alençon — under whom both men served, but who favored Le Gris — Carrouges cleverly (rashly?) demanded a “trial by combat,” wherein the survivor’s version of events would be “sanctified by God’s judgment.”

 

Interesting times, the 14th century…

 

This era has been persuasively established by Scott, production designer Arthur Max, and cinematographer Dariusz Wolski. Everything looks and feels authentic: the harsh, unforgiving landscape; the massive, fortified castles and estates; costume designer Janty Yates’ myriad creations for nobles, commoners and serfs; and the boisterous, bedraggled, grime-encrusted cast of many, many hundreds (if not the iconic thousands).

 

Damon’s scruffy, hulking Jean de Carrouges is bold, rash and a formidable warrior. He’s also emotionally adrift, having lost his wife and only son to the plague. Uneducated and unable to properly manage his estate, he’s forever behind in the “rent” owed Pierre d’Alençon (Affleck, initially unrecognized beneath curly blond hair and beard), which annoys the count.

 

Carrouges and Le Gris (Adam Driver) began as neighbors and friends; the latter became godfather to Carrouges’ ill-fated son. They serve in bloody battle together, an example of which opens this film: a brutal, gory scrum of iron-clad men bashing each other to death. With horses, swords, daggers and battle axes. 

 

Several such melees take place as the story progresses, staged for maximum impact by editor Claire Simpson, fight choreographer Troy Milenov and stunt coordinator Rob Inch. They’re not for the faint of heart.

 

As to where the relationship between Carrouges and Le Gris goes from there…

Herself: Richly poignant empowerment drama

Herself (2020) • View trailer

Four stars. Rated R, for profanity and vicious domestic violence

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 1.29.21 

There’s a strong sense, throughout this superbly mounted little Irish drama — exclusive to Amazon Prime — that star/co-scripter Clare Dunne writes from personal awareness.

 

I dearly hope that isn’t the case.

 

Sandra (Clare Dunne) and younger daughter Molly (Molly McCann) are delighted by
the progress being made under the watchful gaze of contractor Aido (Conleth Hill).

She stars as Sandra, a single mother with two young daughters, who has just escaped her possessive and abusive partner, Gary (Ian Lloyd Anderson). Although “the system” has kept a roof over their heads, bouncing them from one tiny hotel room to another, she’s barely scraping by. She works two part-time jobs, to keep them fed: as a pub barmaid; and as a housekeeper for Peggy (Harriet Walter), an aging doctor for whom Sandra’s mother once worked, back in the day.

 

But these details come a bit later. Director Phyllida Lloyd, and scripters Dunne and Malcolm Campbell, open their film with a shocking sequence: Gary bloodies Sandra’s face and then stomps on her wrist, shattering it far beyond any hope of total recovery.

 

The worst part? Sandra has anticipated just such an encounter, arming elder daughter Emma (Ruby Rose O’Hara) with a previously written plea for help and a code phrase — “black widow” — that sends the little girl running to the closest store.

 

Despite this, months later, Sandra’s still forced to interact with Gary, given that he gets weekend visits with their daughters. (Seriously? After that display of violence? If this is accurate, either Sandra had a crap lawyer, or Ireland needs to seriously revise its family protective services laws.)

 

And, as always is the case with serial abusers, Gary’s doing his best to wheedle his way back into their lives. Which, to Sandra’s credit, she rejects utterly. She most emphatically is not a serial victim.

 

But she is increasingly desperate, because the status quo isn’t sustainable; lacking a permanent home isn’t psychologically healthy for her daughters. Worse yet, this situation actually lends weight to Gary’s contrasting “stability,” since he’s living with his parents. But Sandra seems without options; rents are beyond her financial ability, never mind mortgages and property prices.

 

One day, a passing reference in one of her daughters’ bedtime stories proves inspirational: Could she build her own home? (Dunne was inspired, as she explains in the film’s production notes, by Irish architect Dominic Stevens, who with friends constructed a wooden self-build in 2012, for roughly $33,000.)

 

Seductive as this notion is, money remains an issue. During an exchange with a bureaucratic clerk that brilliantly illustrates the ludicrous flaws of the welfare system, Sandra accurately argues that a one-time loan would be far cheaper to the system, than the ongoing costs associated with hotel expenses … and gets nowhere. It’s a shrewdly scripted shake-your-head exchange.