"WE'RE GOING TO DO THE BEST WE CAN WITH IT"
The Playlist's Drew Taylor spoke briefly with Jason Statham at a recent press junket for Boaz Yakin's Safe, which opens Friday. Taylor made sure to ask Statham about his connection to Brian De Palma, who had earlier been developing Parker, which Statham wound up signing on for and filming with director Taylor Hackford. De Palma will direct Statham in a remake of the Burt Reynolds movie Heat later this year. "I met De Palma in New York and, you know, he's one of the living legends," Statham told Taylor. "Scarface is one of my top five movies of all time, so the chance to work with that kind of quality is something I never saw happening. It just happens to be an old movie from the past and we're going to do the best we can with it."When asked by Taylor what drew him to make Safe, Statham said, "It sounded like something that maybe people would want to go see." Statham then elaborated on how he approaches such decisions. "The whole purpose of doing these films is, 'Would you want to go see these films? Do you think anyone else would?' And 'Would it be a good experience?'" Taylor calls Safe one of Statham's better films. Salon's Andrew O'Hehir feels that Safe is perhaps the most authentic of recent thrillers that "partake of a ’70s-flavored dystopian and/or paranoid vision." Aware of the upcoming Heat remake, O'Hehir suggests that Statham "seems on course to becoming a modern-day [Charles] Bronson or Burt Reynolds."
Statham seems like he will be a great match for De Palma. The actor, who loves to do his own stunts, fights, etc., told Ivan Solotaroff in the April 2012 issue of Details about his disdain for special effects. "Fahkin' hate green screen," Statham is quoted as saying. "Pay significant amounts of money never to do it again. You cannot fake adrenaline." Sounds like an actor tailor-made for De Palma's brand of No Net Productions and long, continuous, choreographed takes.