Review of Shelter

Shelter (VI) (2017)
5/10
Same Old Story, Different Genders
13 July 2019
Mossad agent Neta Riskin is sent to a Hamburg safe house to babysit Golshifteh Farahani. Fahahani is the former lover of a Hezbollah leader. She has been selling information to Israel for years. Now, however, she is pausing on a flight to Canada, while her plastic surgery heals, rendering her unrecognizable; as Miss Riskin's boss says, "We take care of our own." Yet as the two women wrangle, then ultimately bond, Miss Riskin begins to wonder who decides who "our own" is.

The, dreary world of grotty safe houses and betrayals that spy movies became after the 1960s "too cool for school" school triggered by the James Bond movies was a necessary corrective. Inevitably it got tangled up with the anti-government school of thought, leaving us with yet another subgenre that still needs its own corrections. This movie, well acted though it is, is shot in dreary light and despite good acting, seems to be more a matter of gender equality than seeking to tell a different story.
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