Safe House is a safe bet…to severely underwhelm and make you dizzy as a college kid after their ninth Yager-bomb.
Its shaky camera time, folks. A grainy 115 minutes of up-close unsteadiness. And if that mechanic doesn’t annoy you, the audibleness of some the characters surely will.
Man, did this flick have it backwards. Instead of literally only shaking up the camera, the filmmakers needed to leave that mechanic alone, and then take that approach (shake things up) and apply it to everything else found in this mess. The only interesting aspect of this government espionage actioner comes forward in the last 30 minutes. Even though everything is still shaky and you still can’t understand what anyone is saying, save for Ryan Reynolds; the loud action sequences that are comprised of car chases, hand-to-hand combat, and few decent shootouts, make this almost salvageable. Almost. And that's because after 95 minutes your eyes and mind have finally adjust to this visual nonsense.
Ryan Reynolds plays a desk-ridden CIA agent who wants to get into the field. Right now, he is the caretaker of a safe house in Cape Town, South Africa. Despite pleading with his superior (Brendan Gleeson) at CIA headquarters in Langley, VA, it looks like the anxious dude is stuck there. That is until Tobin Frost (Denzel Washington), a rogue agent that multiple world agencies have been trying to apprehend, is caught and subsequently sent to be interrogated at Reynolds’ joint. Well, things get a little funky during the interrogation as a random group of heavily armed individuals are relentlessly hunting down Frost. Reynolds is unsure what to do, but he ends up keeping Frost in his custody as he tries to stay a step ahead of the posse until the cavalry arrives.
Naturally, the script drops subtle hints that Frost may not be such a bad man after all. And his brief mind game tactics with Reynolds tries to sell this to the audience. Truth is my friends; we all know who is legit and who is shady early on. Ironically, the script plays it too safe.
There was a golden opportunity to take obvious characters and turn the tables on the audience (i.e. Vera Farmiga as another CIA superior). Hell, even a few minor tweaks to the storytelling delivery would have done something here. Instead, it’s the same old story, same old song and dance.
It goes without saying that most performers are always trying to give their best while shooting a film. But sometimes, they just misread where they are in the script or perhaps the director is just steering them the wrong way. There are scenes here where Denzel Washington – whose character is put on an underdeveloped pedestal - just seems to not be engaged with what he is asked to do. You can almost envision him looking at the camera and saying, “Ah, not this again.” Then there’s Ryan Reynolds, who does extremely well in the action scenes, yet his belief in his character persona seems to dip at random times. Sure it kind of fits with the uncertainty that his character is having within the storyline, but you can also envision him looking at the camera and uttering, “Really, this is the plot?” A plot by the way, that is nothing more than a gritty and not-so elaborate chase sequence, which never feels threatening at all.
Overall, Safe House is a poorly crafted action-spy flick with exceptional talent running around aimlessly. And can we please do away with the shaky cinematography in this genre! It’s not inventive anymore; it’s officially annoying.
Safe House is rated R and opens in the Tampa Bay market on Friday.
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