Safe, review - Telegraph Dir: Boaz Yakin. Starring: Jason Statham, Catherine Chan, Chris Sarandon Ever since Luc Besson's Transporter films established him as a bankable action lead, Jason Statham has developed a unique style of acting that might be described as mid-Atlantic inexpressivism. It wouldn't work particularly well in a Brontë adaptation, but it's perfect for a cherishably nasty little Seventies throwback such as Safe, in which he plays Luke Wright, a New York law enforcer turned cage fighter whose wife has been killed by the Russian mob. Director Boaz Yakin's script quickly establishes Manhattan as the abyss of corruption that it was in the bad old days of Death Wish and Serpico: the gangsters run everything apart from the cops, the cops run the gangsters; and everyone has a gun trained on someone else's back. In the midst of it all is Mei (Catherine Chan), an 11-year-old maths prodigy whose job keeping the accounts of a Chinatown kingpin (James Hong) has made her a target of the Russians. Wright vows to protect her and the bodies start piling up in drifts. Profoundly trashy and violent, Safe clatters along with a thrilling seat-of-its-pants propulsiveness. There's no messing around and that's why it works; Statham just beats, shoots and leaves.