Movie review of Safe House - Denzel Washington stand tall as a turncoat spy but Safe House is too dull to recommend.
Ryan Reynolds works hard throughout the CIA thriller Safe House, sweating his way through scenes of hand-to-hand combat, dodging explosions and leading a speeding car chase through the busy streets of Cape Town, South Africa. Reynolds looks haggard by the middle of director Daniel Espinosa’s spy adventure. Meanwhile his co-star Denzel Washington sits back and makes it look easy with the flash of his trademark smile.
Safe House separates the action veterans from the boys; another way of saying that Washington has the ability to make bad movies better and Reynolds does not.
Unfortunately writer David Guggenheim delivers a spy thriller that follows all the numbers without a single surprise or legit double cross. Espinosa and his crew including Oliver Wood, cinematographer for all the Jason Bourne movies, do their best to amp up the action with aerial photography, vibrant colors and fast-moving camerawork. None of it helps due to plot holes a mile wide.
Safe House turns out to be something of an action movie anomaly — a film so awful even Denzel Washington cannot make it worth watching.
CIA agent Matt Weston (Reynolds) tries to protect his highly wanted prisoner Tobin Frost (Washington) during an attack on a CIA safe house in Cape Town, South Africa. Weston escapes with Frost after his safe house is viciously attacked. Rushing to transport Frost safely to a rural safe house, Weston begins to understand why so many people want Frost dead and why his own life is in jeopardy.
Reynolds is plenty handsome and likable as Weston but he fails to match the grit and suspense he displayed in his best movie to date, the thriller Buried.
Reynolds appears out-of-sorts throughout Safe House, bouncing wildly from one action sequence to another. As a result, he continues his streak of bad movies going back to last summer’s superhero adventure Green Lantern and the buddy comedy The Change Up.
As Weston’s CIA superior, Brendan Gleeson plays the type of shady character we’ve come to expect from his supporting roles in Hollywood blockbusters. Vera Farmiga and Sam Shepard make little impact as fellow CIA administrators.
Joel Kinneman, who plays a shady cop on the AMC crime drama The Killing, delivers the best sequence in Safe House as the custodian of the rural safe house Weston and Frost seek safety.
Of course, every gun battle, crashing car and explosion revolve around Washington and he gamely maintains an air of credibility even when as the movie turns sillier.
The Swedish-born Espinosa keeps the action bouncing around Cape Town from its massive soccer stadium to its outlying townships and their shanty villages but fails to take advantage of the city’s dramatic opportunities.
Espinosa unloads plenty of explosions and gunfire as if trying to draw attention from the film’s fading subplots and lack of a climactic payoff.
Standing tall in the center of it all is Denzel Washington trying his best to lift the movie above action mediocrity. Washington makes an impressive effort and he almost pulls it off but a spy thriller as bad as Safe House is beyond saving.
Distributor: Universal Pictures
Cast: Denzel Washington, Ryan Reynolds, Vera Farmiga, Brendan Gleeson, Sam Shepard, Joel Kinnaman
Screenwriter: David Guggenheim
Director: Daniel Espinosa
Cinematographer: Oliver Wood
Editor: Richard Pearson
Producers: Relativity Media, Moonlighting Films, Intrepid Pictures, Stuber Productions
Running Time: 115 minutes
Rating: Rated R
Release Date: February 10, 2012