While audiences predominantly know Jason Statham as fast with the fisticuffs (or from this video, if they are sophisticates), he is not without acting talent. Shelter, directed by Ric Roman Waugh and written by Ward Parry, seems more interested in the latter. Fights and shootouts generally take a backseat to Statham warming up to his young charge. Think The Specialist with less action and far less creep factor.

Michael Mason (Statham) lives on a quiet island off the coast of Scotland with his dog. Jessie (Bodhi Rae Breathnach), a teenager connected to a former work associate of Mason’s, is the man’s only regular visitor, coming out weekly to deliver him necessary supplies. Despite the girl’s attempts at connection and the recent death of her mom, Mason remains distant and indifferent. Unfortunately, a storm injures her. That forces him first to invite her into his home and then to go to the mainland to secure first-aid supplies.

While there, a surveillance camera alerts British intelligence to his presence. Years earlier, he defied his handler, Manafort (Bill Nighy), faked his own death, and went underground. Upon receiving the alert, Manafort immediately dispatches assassins to take out his former charge. Meanwhile, the woman who now holds Manafort’s former role, Roberta (Naomi Ackie), wants Mason captured and questioned. As Mason runs with Jessie, the spymasters clash. The bent Manafort derails Roberta’s efforts to do things by the book while she frustrates his very illegal machinations.

As alluded to above, this is a fairly conventional plot. The presence of Nighy and Ackie does class things up a bit, adding an air of respectability to a project that wouldn’t have looked out of place as a Direct-to-Redbox a decade ago. However, the movie succeeds or fails on the strength of its core dyad. Thankfully for Shelter, Statham and Breathnach play well off each other. She starts appropriately open-hearted without feeling overly childish for her age. Her progressive hardening throughout, as well as her gradual stripping away of her “bodyguard’s” defenses, is natural and unshowy. Statham can probably do gruff with a soft center in his sleep. Still, he matches Breathnach well here.

Unfortunately, the movie still needs action sequences to give it a pulse. On that front, it is overly restrained. Waugh, a frequent collaborator with Gerard Butler, certainly knows how to do action, and blockbuster action besides. Perhaps in knowingly executing a “smaller” movie, he overestimated how quiet he’d need to go. The hushed quality is frequently admirable, as when Mason and Jessie win over the trust of a father and son whose home they break into. At others, though, it gives a potentially thrilling car chase a low-energy feel that does it no favors. For a run-and-gun affair where time is of the essence, the players too frequently seem content to take their time.

The film’s color palette doesn’t help. Cinematographer Martin Ahlgren offers some well-composed shots, particularly of the island and a nightclub fight that spills out onto the late-night streets. However, everything is shot through with this grey haze. Yes, I am aware that Scotland, Ireland, and Britain are well known for their grey rainy days. However, there’s a samey-ness to so much of it. That, combined with Shelter’s frequent quiet tone and slow pacing, often makes the just over an hour and forty-five-minute movie feel plodding and repetitive. Again, we’re back at this being a Direct-to-Redbox still “actioner.”

It is that repeated disappointment that lingers. A small-scale, quiet feature revolving around a man and a girl as they try to escape his past and her grief sounds great. But the film seems hesitant to allow that plot to have moments of excitement and bursts of energy as well. Small and quiet doesn’t have to mean drab and stifling. Alas, Shelter never learns that lesson.

Shelter abandons the island for multiplexes starting January 30.

Shelter Trailer: