The notorious CIA turncoat, Tobin Frost (Denzel Washington) re-emerges like a hunted man in Southern region Africa. He turns himself into the American Embassy, and is taken to some safe house operated by means of junior CIA agent Matt Weston (Ryan Reynolds). Within moments of his or her arrival, the team guarding Frost is slaughtered inside a surprise attack, and Weston is pushed to flee with Frost as his prisoner, with the directive to hold him alive for 17 hours, at which time he can be extracted from another safe house. But can Weston keep hold of the wiley Frost, who has an agenda of their own?
SAFE HOUSE has each of the ingredients for a cracker-jack thriller. It has the cool premise, a promising new director in the helm (Daniel Espinosa- director of the Swedish hit EASY CASH), and two big stars inside lead roles. Sure enough, the end result is usually a slick ride, with enough entertainment value to make it well worth the price of admission- but I couldn’t help but feel the film was strangely inert from time to time.
Maybe this has regarding the fact that, in a way, SAFE HOUSE is as well familiar. Firstly, it’s very reminiscent associated with TRAINING DAY, with Washington playing a different veteran anti-hero, teamed with a noble younger guy- who gets taken around the ride of his living, although instead of the actual gang wars of Southern region Central L. A, we get the cloak in addition to dagger espionage tactics on the CIA- with most connected with South Africa being became a war zone for the two leads. It also owes a heck of an lot to 3: 10 TO YUMA (the two remake and the original) with the truth that the hero has to offer his unwilling, but charismatic captive on the authorities, while being hunted by a vast opposition.
Where SAFE HOUSE really goes wrong was in the two-hander aspect, with Denzel Washington certainly making mincemeat of Jones Reynolds on-screen. Early on, we see Reynolds dishonoured a baseball against a new wall, which I suppose was designed to make us view him or her as Steve McQueen-ish figure, but that type involving vibe really doesn’t suit Reynolds, who’s maybe too “nice” with the role. Someone tougher, and perhaps older and even more threatening was needed for the part. I don’t buy the entire “babe-in-the-woods” act that we’re purported to swallow here, as the guy is of course a CIA agent that’s building a safe house in Southerly Africa. Certainly he should be a little more formidable? Someone like Mark Wahlberg (or even an outside-the-box casting notion like Oscar Issac or Liev Schreiber) was needed here, and while Reynolds acquits himself nicely in the action scenes (of which there are many) every time this focus is shifted away from Denzel and on to help Reynolds, the film grinds into a halt- and I declare this as someone who truly likes Reynolds as an actor. It’s just miscasting.
Otherwise though, SAFE HOUSE is a significant enough film, although it’s predictable because heck. After a while, the twists get higher than a little goofy (if one where you should take a shot whenever a character is obtained by a surprise off-screen gunshot by someone who’s just now being revealed as a traitor,
