: Safe House
The concept of this sounded great in the trailers — a lowly CIA nobody manning a safe house in Capetown is suddenly the center of everything when the world’s most dangerous criminal is brought in to him to guard. But safe house’s location is compromised and attacked, and only the CIA guy escapes with his prisoner and they’re on the run not knowing who they can trust.
The trailer talked about how the criminal is a master at psychological manipulation and promised all sorts of mind games where we’re not sure if our criminal is playing our hero or vice versa.
But unfortunately the film fails to deliver on all that promise. The “revelation” at the end was something I predicted three minutes into the film… and little surprised me after that. There are large logic gaps throughout the film where much isn’t explained. For instance, while on the run our hero suddenly has a vehicle, but we aren’t shown where he got it. Did he steal it? Is it a car he had hidden for emergencies?
We aren’t really sure how our hero or others figures things out, and sometimes when it is clear, it’s not that intelligent. The bad guys seem to have unlimited resources in terms of bullets, guns, SUVs, and men, while the good is stranded on his own.
The middle part of the film is a muddle and more confusing than anything, and the end, when everything’s ultimately explained, is too predictable.
All that being said, however, this is not a bad film; it’s just not great. It’s disappointing to me because my expectations were high and the idea had huge potential. I figured the “psychological manipulation” would be along the lines of the amazing Hannibal Lector in Silence of the Lambs but it was a faint shadow of that.
On the plus side, the film’s action scenes are good, though some of the fights go on much too long. Once the action gets going it doesn’t stop, either, so the whole movie’s a non-stop thrill-ride. The performances are terrific, with both Ryan Reynolds and Denzel Washington rising above the material. Ultimately it’s a film that the nitpicky will find annoying and the casual viewer will probably enjoy.
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