Alex B Cann Film Column - Roses are red, violets are Statham 12/02/26

I've only seen one film this week, so let's cover that with that before we get onto the season of romance which is looming this weekend. Shelter is your typical Jason Statham affair, and ticks most of the boxes for fans of his work. A storm hits the isolated island where the retired special-forces operative is living, holed up in an old lighthouse. After Mason (Statham) rescues a young girl from danger, he's forced to confront the past he's been running from, whilst trying to protect them both from further danger after he is wrongly flagged as a terrorist.

I have to be frank and admit it's difficult to remember many plot details, almost a week after watching this film. As soon as I saw the cute German shepherd Jack, I feared for his future, having seen John Wick, and sadly my fears were realised fairly early in the film. Dogs never seem to fare very well in action films like this one. Anyway, Statham growls his way through the script and proves he can take down a whole room of highly trained operatives, but it doesn't contain many surprises. Watchable, but certainly not memorable. A pleasing lack of CGI and some real stunts, and a decent car chase sequence, are plus points. I guess it's junk food for fans of this genre, but is by no means a classic. Bill Nighy is also underutilised. The purpose-built set that contained the lighthouse was apparently later used to film scenes from Hamnet, which I keep being told I'm mad to have missed so far.

There are some classic movies back on the big screen in the coming weeks, and whilst I've got your attention, I wanted to give you my highlights from the list. Sleepless In Seattle is one I'm planning to hunker down and watch this weekend. One of Nora Ephron's best, and Tom Hanks & Meg Ryan have superb chemistry in this one. They of course returned five years later in the not-quite-as-good You've Got Mail (when E-mail was quite a new thing...imagine how much time we used to have before it was invented!).

Rain Man is also on at Cineworld Ashton this Sunday, and remains a classic almost four decades on from its release. Whilst awareness of autism has shifted hugely since 1988, and some say this film is a fairly unsubtle portrayal, it was pretty groundbreaking at the time it was released, and for me remains one of Dustin Hoffman's best performances.

And The Godfather returns to the big screen on February 22nd. Whilst its 175 minute running time used to seem massive, it is a good 20 minutes shorter than Avatar 3. If you've never seen this mafia classic, now is as good a time as any. I'd say it justifies its duration, unlike so many films these days that are at least half an hour longer than they need to be.

Next week, The Strangers - Chapter 3, Wasteman, Goat and 101 Crimes. Happy film watching!