Safe (2012)

This is your typical Statham flick - bad guy who is really a good guy but for some reason has been doing seemingly bad things is put in a situation where he does the right thing in an incredibly bad-ass way. Nothing new on that front. This movie is a lot bigger than most of his films, instead of a cast of a few dozen, there are hundreds. The mechanics of the film - the lighting, cinematography, sound, continuity - are all very good and bespeak of a larger investment than most of his films. And the story is better too. In this film, Statham actually sounds like an American. This may be his best film. So, if you're a Jason Statham fan, watch this.
What I found really interesting, however, didn't really have anything to do with Statham. The plot of the movie revolves a Chinese gangster who in this age of ubiquitous electronics and computers doesn't trust them to keep track of his funds because he knows that anyone can steal them, so he uses a little girl named Mai, played wonderfully by Catherince Chan, to store his numbers. I find it very intriguing that the better technology gets, the safest way to store sensitive information is by not using any technology at all.
The second interesting feature of this film is the background of Luke Wright (Statham). After 9/11, the mayor of New York had to put almost all of his resources into dealing with the potential terrorist threat. He asked for help from the shadow government who was really running the country then and they sent the mayor two men to use in sensitive situations. One of these men was Wright who killed many criminals who were relatively high up the food chain. He was serving the mayor, but also an agenda from the people who sent him to NYC. At some point years later, Wright figures out that thanks to his actions, a cadre of dirty cops have filled in the vacancies in the insurance and extortion racket in NYC. He does the only thing he can, and goes to IA and narcs them out. I find the notion of a shadow government loaning out or giving away a super agent, think Bourne Identity here, to accomplish things that regular police officers can't do.
These ideas are not bad for an action flick. I would have loved to see them developed more, but then what they do in the sequel then?

Safe at IMDb

Layer Cake (2005)

I've watched a lot of movies about gangsters, about wanna-be gangsters, about business men mistaken for gangsters, about people trying to break into the life, about people trying to break out of the life. There comes a point when you think that you've seen just about all there is to see in the genre. Sure, you'll still watch new films because of this actor or that set-up, and they're enjoyable, but the enjoyment is much like the premise, derivative.
Then along comes a movie like this one, which I must say that I've known about for years but didn't watch because it was always described to me as a, "British gangster flick about a good enough bloke who wants to get out of the life but due to matters beyond his control can't". Well, that sounds an awful lot like every Jason Statham gangster film I've ever seen. Sure, that first one was entertaining, and the second one had some funny bits, and the third one had that one hot actress, and then finally I'm not watching "that" film anymore. but then one day, as you're working your way through a particular actor's works, in my case Daniel Craig, it comes up again and you give in and think that at least Craig and co-star Sienna Miller are pretty to look at. And then you notice once you've finally got the box in your hand that the film also stars some other really great actors like Colm Meaney and George Harris, oh and some guy named Michael Gambon.
Craig plays Mr. X, well that's not his name, but they make a point of never naming him. He's a drug dealer at the distribution level. When the story begins he is finishing what is going to be his last job. He's put aside a lot of money which he has laundered and also has a stake in a very lucrative and more importantly legitimate business. But the boss that X works for has other plans. There is a girl that needs to be found and there is a huge - million pill - drug deal that needs to be brokered.
Nobody is what they seem in this film. X is a "businessman", or so he states at the beginning, but by the end of the film, well he's as gangster as gangster gets. There's his boss that pretty much forces him into this deal, who turns out to be a snitch. There is cool-headed Morty (Harris) that is X's right-hand man, that is until he runs into a guy who sent him down the river for ten, that when Morty is done with him is in a coma after an extremely sever beating in a diner. There is the top-of-the-top criminal overlord, Temple (Gambon) who turns out to be just as dirty and duplicitous as the gangsters he looks down upon.
The girl that X is supposed to be rescuing is Temple's daughter and she doesn't need rescuing, but that puts X on Temple's radar. And the drugs to be moved were stolen from a former Serb Warlord that wants his merchandise back along with the head of everyone involved.
Every time you think that X is down, he's up, and every time that you think he's up, he's down. But in the end, he ends up with his retirement after all and the girl. For a minute or two.
The movie is brutal in a couple of parts, but nothing that you wouldn't expect from this genre. You're also surprised by who does and who doesn't die and who kills them. I think this was good enough to get me to take another look at the gangster films again, particularly British gangster films.