Safe House review

I'm going to try NOT and hype up Safe House as much as I want to.

Suffice it to say that the bar is now set for 2012 best movie of the year. Of course, eventually Safe House will be beat by many. But it's important to take notice that within a Hollywood "dump month", Safe House is a jewel that should be seen.

I think part of my love for it stems from the fact that we haven't had a decent action slash suspense-thriller in years. But this movie takes the cake.

Ryan Reynolds is a CIA operative working in a South African safe house which can be used for everything from interrogation to holding and even simply as a hide-out if things have gotten to hot for an active agent. Reynolds wants more action and has been cooling his heels waiting for the day where he can shine. He's basically a step-up from an analyst. The day comes around when a rogue agent (played by Denzel - yes he's a one-name man if you think about it) is brought in and all Hell breaks loose. Reynolds has to decide who to trust, why, where, and when to trust them all in the heat of them moment in a film that spans two-three days.

I've read negative reviews from this flick and I flat-out disagree with all of the complaints I've heard. Everything from Washington phoning it in as a Training Day re-hash to Reynolds being miscast.

I firmly and disrespectively DISAGREE.

Is the film fairly predictable? Yes, I think so. But I'm not everyone. I think the average movie-goer won't be able to figure everything out and even if they do, who cares?

This is an enjoyable film. It has great performances, great action set-pieces, and phenomenal fight sequences. Some of the fist fights are reminiscent of the Bourne movies, but they are more realistic. Meaning that while there is some shaky-cam stuff, I feel like THIS shaky-cam work isn't used by an incompetent "artist" trying to prove something (yes I just called out Paul Greengrass) but more from a very interesting visual auteur who is both showing you the fight while trying to take you into it at a very realistic level while keeping it palatable.

I thought the fighting was BRILLIANT. Not only from a camera-angle aspect but even the moves that were used were more realistic and interesting than anything I ever saw in the Bourne movies. A perfect example would be that Ryan Reynolds is a TALL man and multiple times within the movie you will see him use his height as an advantage against an adversary. Whether he falls forward and puts his weight down on an opponent in a small hallway while kneeing the guy in his stomach or leans back and uses his long legs at close range to shove someone away from him, you can tell that these fights were very smartly choreographed.

But I don't want to keep comparing this movie to the Bourne movies. Only because Safe House should stand on it's own. It's very well directed, very smart, interesting, and FUN.

It also has an element of a buddy-cop movie without the grand sense of humor. It's like a new, twisted version of Lethal Weapon that's about spies.

Possibly the best straight-up action movie I've seen in a decade. 



8 / 10