Movie Review: 'Safe House' movie a safe bet for thriller lovers who don't want to overthink
Submitted by admin on Mon, 02/13/2012 - 2:08pm
"Safe House," an action thriller on view at the Fandano Galaxy cineplex in Carson City, is the latest in the parade of suck movies from Hollywood.
It has all the requisite features — explosions, car chases, a plethora of violence and a couple of stars. Denzel Washington stars as Tobin Frost, a rouge CIA agent in possession of a secret file that makes him a CIA target. Ryan Reynolds plays Matt Weston, an active CIA agent in charge of a safe house in Cape Town, South Africa.
The film opens with Frost on the run, and he is captured at the U.S. Embassy and brought to Weston's safe house. There he is waterboarded in an effort to find the missing file. But bad guys break in and shoot up the CIA men. (The waterboarding scene is quite graphic and makes one wonder about U.S. agents using it on terrorists or whomever.)
Back at CIA HQ Weston contacts his boss, David Barlow (Brendan Gleeson, and if you don't spot him as the ultimate bad guy you're not a certified agent.). Another CIA agent Linkletter (Vera Farmiga) becomes involved and flies off to Cape Town.
Meanwhile, Weston takes Frost to an apartment and questions him. Linkletter orders him to another apartment and that the CIA will take it from there. Frost notes that when they say they'll take it from there it's bad news for you.
Westcon contacts his girlfriend Ana Moreau (Nora Amezeder) and tells her to get out of the country after giving her a wad of dough.
From here things proceed along pretty well defined paths with the needed car chases, explosions and other mayhem played out.
This is about a brutal a film in recent memory with Westlon killing and strangling at will and Frost doing the same. There's not much original here or thought provoking, although the idea that the CIA and other government agencies are corrupt.
Denzel is his usual professional best, Ryan the typical strong and moral guy (except when killing). Sam Shepard is a starchy CIA boss and Ruben Blades is mean looking bad guy.
Direction by Daniel Espinosa is firm and quick and script sounds like the writer was only told to get those explosions in there.
If you dote on thrillers this is pretty much off the rack stuff. Don't worry about overworking your brain. Despite the plot twists it's all pretty obvious. And while there is more than enough violence to justify an R rating, I look back to when R usually meant female nudity. Sigh.
—Sam Bauman
Cast
- Denzel Washington as Tobin Frost
- Ryan Reynolds as Matt Weston
- Vera Farmiga as Catherine Linklater
- Brendan Gleeson as David Barlow
- Sam Shepard as Harlan Whitford
- Rubén Blades as Carlos Villar
- Nora Arnezeder as Ana Moreau
- Robert Patrick as Daniel Kiefer
- Liam Cunningham as Alec Wade
- Joel Kinnaman as Keller
- Fares Fares as Vargas
- Sebastian Roché as Heissler
Directed by Daniel Espinosa
Produced by Scott Stuber
Written by David Guggenheim
Music by Ramin Djawadi
Cinematography by Oliver Wood
Editing by Richard Pearson
Studio: Relativity Media, Stuber Productions
Distributed by Universal Pictures
Release date(s) February 10, 2012
Running time: 117 minutes, rated R
