Well-Acted House Plays it Safe
Matt Westin (Ryan Reynolds) is bored. A low-level CIA agent tasked with supervising a Safe House in Cape Town, South Africa, he’s spent the last 12 months twiddling his thumbs hoping for something interesting to do. This isn’t a job, nor is it an adventure, it is instead a tedious mind-numbing chore he’d like to be finished with, continually badgering his Washington, DC superior David Barlow (Brendan Gleeson) for a new assignment.
Ryan Reynolds and Denzel Washington in Safe House © Universal Pictures
But things are about to change, and Matt would learn to be careful what you wish for because when noted CIA traitor Tobin Frost (Denzel Washington) walks through his door he brings more forms of lethal trouble with him than anything the inexperienced agent ever could have imagined. The Safe House under siege, the team assigned to transport and protect Frost dead, it is now up to Westin to make sure his charge remains alive and breathing no matter what obstacles stand in his way.
Safe House is almost a good movie. While David Guggenheim’s intricate plot is hardly unfamiliar, while the twists occurring during its climax are hardly unforeseen, the narrative itself is pleasingly intelligent and character based making what happens far more intriguing than it would have been otherwise. It’s a fun, free-wheeling international adventure filled with strong moments and even stronger performances, the film’s 115 minute running time flying by in what feels like an instant.
So what’s the problem? Well, other than the aforementioned familiarity issue, Swedish director Daniel Espinosa (Easy Money) directs things as if on Paul Greengrass Jason Bourne autopilot. The whole film is shot, scored and edited to look like The Bourne Ultimatum only without that film’s energy or sense of purpose. At numerous points the picture becomes a cacophony of chaotic imagery bordering on nonsense, keeping track of what is going on where and by who far more of an annoying chore than it has any right to be.
There are some exceptions. There’s a great bit at a soccer stadium where Frost manufactures one of his magical escapes and Westin has to use every bit of his training and his instinct to try and track him down before he disappears for good. It’s a mesmerizing sequence where everything works with a visual fluidity I found breathlessly compelling, leading to a moment of choice for an increasingly frazzled Matt that’s as gut-wrenching as it is unavoidable.
I also liked the climactic bit at a secluded Safe House in the middle of the South African desert, and while what takes place isn’t exactly a surprise the way Washington dominates this sequence of events is more or less stunning. He swaggers his way with a cocksure ferocity that couldn’t help but make me smile, and while a character like Frost is hardly a stretch for the two-time Oscar winner that doesn’t make his performance any less of a treat.
The real surprise, however, is Reynolds. I’ve always liked the Green Lantern and The Proposal star, always felt there was something about him that kept me intrigued even if I felt he was rarely, if ever, stretching himself (Buried being the lone, and in many ways most important, exception). Here, forced to portray a character as far removed as any he has ever portrayed before, stripped of his cocky sarcasm and virile machismo, he becomes an unsteady and untested intelligence operative forced to learn under the most extreme form of pressure imaginable. Reynolds inhabits every fiber of Westin’s being, digging deep in a way I’m not sure he’s done before, and as such gives the film’s most indelible performance and in many ways becomes the chief reasons a viewer cold be persuaded to recommend the finished product to their friends.
Unfortunately, Safe House never does quite live up to either the performances of its stars or its most interesting sequences. Vera Farmiga is wasted in a throwaway bit as a fellow CIA agent working in tandem with Barlow, her presence a virtual afterthought in all the ways that count. Rubén Blades, Sam Shepard, Robert Patrick and Liam Cunningham also pop in small, if moderately important, roles, yet none of them are given enough time to make much in the way of impact in regards to all the cloak and dagger monkeyshines. While not a total loss by any stretch, Espinosa’s Hollywood debut is still something a disappointment, and while it will play just fine when it makes its inevitable appearance on Cable television I’m not sure it’s close to good enough to warrant the purchase of even a matinée ticket at the multiplex’s box office.
Film Rating: êê1/2 (out of 4)
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