Shelter (15)
Cast: Daniel Mays, Bill Nighy, Bodhi Rae Breathnach, Jason Statham, Harriet WalterGenre: Action
Author(s): Ward Parry
Director: Ric Roman Waugh
Release Date: 30/01/2026
Running Time: 107mins
Country: UK/US
Year: 2026
Michael Mason is a former asset of a clandestine British government operation called the Black Kites, who lives off-grid in a lighthouse in the Outer Hebrides. Every week, a young girl named Jessie and her uncle travel by boat to Michael's windswept home to drop off supplies. When a storm strands Jessie on Michael's island, he travels to the mainland for medical supplies and his face is caught on camera, triggering a top priority alert to newly installed MI6 chief, Roberta Frost.
LondonNet Film Review
Shelter (15) Film Review from LondonNet
Jason Statham flexes his muscles for stuntman-turned-filmmaker Ric Roman Waugh in a high-stakes espionage thriller written by Ward Parry, which models its clandestine asset handling, propulsive car chases and bone-crunching hand-to-hand fisticuffs on Jason Bourne’s gung-ho escapades. Michael Mason (Statham) is an ex-special forces soldier, who was once wielded as a “precision instrument” by the British government to carry out covert operations as part of an elite hit squad known as the Black Kites…
He now lives off the grid in a lighthouse in the Outer Hebrides where he can avoid retina-scanning CCTV cameras and other surveillance. His current location is unknown to Prime Minister Fordham (Harriet Walter) and her inner circle. On his island, Michael’s sole companion is his trusty dog and every week, an orphaned girl named Jessie (Bodhi Rae Breathnach) and her uncle (Michael Schaeffer) travel by boat to drop off supplies. When a storm strands Jessie on Michael’s windswept sanctuary, he is forced to venture to the mainland for medical supplies and his face is caught on camera, triggering a top priority alert to the country’s newly installed MI6 chief, Roberta Frost (Naomi Ackie).
She is blissfully unaware of Michael’s role in the Black Kites and the culpability of her Machiavellian predecessor, Steven Manafort (Bill Nighy). He activates ruthless assassin-for-hire Workman (Bryan Vigier) to erase Michael and Jessie and avoid scrutiny of his actions. Bullets fly, tempers flare and Michael turns to one of the few people he knows he can trust, MI6 contact Arthur Booth (Daniel Mays), to secure safe passage to London to unravel the conspiracy.
Shelter is a slick, propulsive action thriller distinguished by touching rapport between Statham’s glowering brute and Breathnach’s spunky tyke, who is in the wrong place at the wrong time. The teenage actor recently portrayed William Shakespeare’s eldest daughter Susannah in Hamnet and she possesses a fragility and wide-eyed innocence that contrasts sharply with Statham’s brute force delivery of lines and body blows. Similarities to the Bourne files are striking: an assassin program codenamed Black Kites not Blackbriar; a veteran British actor as a puppet master toying with agents’ lives; dizzying, close quarters hand-to-hand combat using improvised props; and a rival killer reminiscent of Karl Urban’s Kirill in the Bourne Supremacy, who employs similarly bullish tactics behind the wheel.
Drawing on his experience as a stuntman, Waugh understands how to choreograph action sequences for maximum impact. One protracted fight between Statham and Vigier pauses for breath between flurries of bone-crunching kicks, jabs and punches to heighten tension. A different and more satisfying resolution is in the film’s grasp but screenwriter Parry takes shelter on the path most travelled.
– Kim Hu
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London Cinemas Showing Shelter
From: Friday 13th March
To: Thursday 19th March
Sat 22:50
Fri 23:20
Sat 23:15; Sun 21:20
From: Friday 20th March
To: Thursday 26th March
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UK and Irish Cinemas Showing Shelter
From: Friday 13th March
To: Thursday 19th March
Sat 23:00; Sun 21:35; Tue 12:55; Thu 22:35
Fri 22:45; Sat 10:55; Wed 12:55
Sun 22:30; Mon 22:00
Fri 23:05; Sat 22:00; Sun 23:00; Mon 22:10; Tue 21:40
Fri 23:15; Sat 22:35
Sun/Tue 22:30
Fri 17:35; Sat 10:30; Sun 09:05; Mon 21:40; Tue 16:05; Wed 22:20
Sat 22:30
Mon 16:40; Tue 20:25; Wed 16:35
Sat 23:00; Sun 21:50
Fri 22:00; Sat 23:35; Sun 22:45; Wed 21:30
Sat 23:15
Sat 23:00; Thu 11:05
Sat 23:20
Sun 22:05
Thu 23:05
From: Friday 20th March
To: Thursday 26th March
No cinema infomation at the moment
