Movie review: Safe House

Moral ambiguity emerges as the film's underlying central theme.

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Source: Cinema Source

If you're a fan of violent, unrelentingly breathless action thrillers, prepare yourself for a neck-snapping, gut-puncturing, point-blank assassinating good time in Safe House, the new good spy vs. bad spy vs. bad-spy-in-good-spy's-clothing adventure from little-known Swedish director Daniel Espinosa.

Given the lead actor's star power and the type of character he plays, this movie could easily sport a subtitle along the lines of Denzel Washington Kicks Ass. Which, for my money, is a selling point. Also — given its big studio backing and the quality of his work on this crowd-pleasing genre production — Espinosa won't remain a little-known director for long.

(On the downside, he appears to have suckled at the stylistic teats of directors such as Ridley and Tony Scott, who revel in putting the camera in there so tight amongst the battling antagonists that it's hard at times to tell who is stabbing/shooting/pummeling whom.)

"What can I say? My ears get cold."

Kicking some ass (and getting some ass-kickings) of his own in this breathlessly-paced gunfight/ carchase/ fisticuffs/ knifefight laden/ never-a-dull-moment spectacular is Ryan Reynolds, who — as we discover on the several occasions when he strips down for wound-dressing purposes — looks mighty buff indeed. (You're welcome, ladies.)

Reynolds plays Matt Weston, a low-level CIA operative stationed in Capetown. Weston is a "housekeeper," meaning he mans an agency safe house — a secure facility where high-risk operatives and/or prisoners can be put up without fear of them either being murdered or escaping, as the case may be. At least, that's the theory...

No sooner has Weston settled into his nightly routine of bouncing a ball against the wall and catching it than he receives a high-alert notice from Langley, indicating he should prepare to receive a very important "guest." This detainee turns out to be the most notorious CIA turncoat of modern times, a chap named Tobin Frost (Washington), who has for several years been reaping huge sums of cash by trading in agency secrets.

"I'm telling you, Manchester United will KICK THEIR ASSES!"

Before the agency spooks get their hands on Frost, we're treated to an opening sequence that demonstrates why he's considered to be the most dangerous man alive. (Or, in moviegoer's minds, perhaps, "the most interesting man in the world.") Denzel cranks up the "suave and deboner" quotient in this performance to the HIGH setting. He's the wizard of chill; the coolest cucumber at the espionage vegetable counter. His talent for operational improvisation gets him out of one deadly encounter after another.

One wonders what sort of cataclysm it might take to raise his blood pressure. Even in custody and strapped to the waterboarding table, he tosses off bon mots worthy of James Bond in his less vulnerable, pre-Daniel Craig days. The only thing that seems to crack Frost's facade is getting shot. (This really pisses him off, and I wouldn't recommend it.)

Anyway, as you might expect from having seen the trailer, Weston ends up teaming with Frost while the two of them run for their lives as a relentless and utterly ruthless team of hit men keep failing again and again to kill them both. (Though they do inflict a good deal of damage along the way.) Peripherally, we are counting down the breathless minutes (all 115 of them) until the real bad guy-or-gal of this drama is revealed, in all his-or-her hissable, backstabbing glory.

"Thank God for styling gel."

How unflappable is Frost? During the film's penultimate confrontation, he watches dispassionately as two agents engage in one of the more brutal cinematic slugfests we've seen since the infamous sauna scene in Cronenberg's Eastern Promises. The stakes couldn't be higher: If one of these guys ends up overpowering the other, Frost — handcuffed to a metal pipe — is dead meat. And yet for all the emotion in evidence, he might as well be watching the confrontation on cable TV.

Creditable supporting performances are turned in by Brendan Gleeson as Weston's agency mentor David Barlow; Vera Farmiga as South African spymaster Catherine Linklater; and Robert Patrick as the leader of the strike team charged with interrogating and — incidentally — protecting Frost during his stay at the safe house.

Moral ambiguity eventually emerges as the underlying central theme of David Guggenheim's somewhat herky-jerky screenplay, with Frost epitomizing its thesis: Everyone in the spying game lies, cheats, and steals — so you might as well come to terms with it and reap the monetary rewards.

HERE'S YOUR SIGN: "When they say 'we'll take it from here' - that's when you know you're screwed." - Frost to Weston

POLITICAL PLAYBOOK?: "You tell lies 100 times a day, it sounds like the truth." - Frost

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