If you love the heady thrill of good action films, if you relish the talent of Denzel Washington and if you enjoy an entertaining two-hours at the movies, then you definitely don’t want to miss Safe House.
The midnight show of Safe House at a theatre on the U.S. East Coast evoked a good response with over 50 people (mostly Black) braving the chill and filing into the hall.
Man, we haven’t had such a good time feasting our eyes over an action movie in months.
And we bet the rest of the audience too had an equally good time.
Scorching Action
Directed by Swedish film-maker Daniel Espinosa (of Snabba Cash fame) from a screenplay by David Guggenheim, Safe House sets a scorching pace from within 10 minutes of the start and never lets up till the end.
Set for the most part in Cape Town, South Africa, Safe House has Denzel Washington playing a rogue CIA agent Tobin Frost with superb finesse.
At CIA headquarters in Langley, the suits damn Frost as a ‘notorious traitor’ and in the same breath hail him as one of the agency’s finest.
But for the last nine years, Frost has been playing his own game and is now wanted for espionage in four continents!
When one afternoon Frost walks into the U.S. Consulate at Cape Town out of the blue, all hell breaks loose at the agency.
The suits at CIA headquarters quickly order Frost to be taken to a safe house for questioning by agency operatives.
Safe house?
Then it’s time to meet Matt Weston (Ryan Reynolds, the former Mr.Scarlett Johansson), the CIA agent in charge of the safe house.
Our man Weston has been chomping at the bit lately over what he considers a horribly dull posting.
But from the moment Frost is brought into the safe house with a hood over his head by a bunch of CIA operatives who then proceed to promptly water-board (not torture says Dickhead Cheney) him, Weston gets more action than he can handle for the next three days as deadly enemies with heavy artillery pursue Frost relentlessly.
Denzel Dazzles
If you think 57 is too old for all those high-wire fast-driving, chasing, running, jumping, leaping across rooftops, shooting and fighting, Denzel Washington, an Oscar winning actor, will easily make you eat humble pie.
Early in the movie, you get a sense of Tobin Frost’s skills as he smoothly and effortlessly breaks an assailant’s neck in the booth of a restroom.
Whether he’s breaking someone’s neck, calmly shooting his pursuers or mocking his ‘protector’ Matt Weston, Denzel Washington owns the movie as he plays the renegade CIA operative with extraordinary aplomb.
Rest of the Cast
It’s to Ryan Reynolds’s credit that he plays a solid second to Washington as the rookie CIA agent determined to safeguard his house-guest, even after the safe house is breached, and deliver him to his superiors.
The photography is handled superbly by Oliver Wood, who cut his ‘action’ teeth filming the three Bourne movies.
Brendan Gleeson, Rubén Blades, Nora Arnezeder and Oscar nominees Vera Farmiga and Sam Shepard make up a formidable supporting cast.
Your favorite blog SearchIndia.com strongly recommends Safe House for all lovers of action films, conspiracy buffs and Denzel Washington fans. Safe House is playing in theatres across America this weekend.
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SI, did you see Snabba Cash? Saw it when it premiered at the TIFF 2 yrs back. Good movie. Both Daniel and the writer- a very attractive lady in a fetching red dress- were in attendance. The filmmakers were very young, probably in their early to mid twenties. When you come across such people sometimes you begin to question your own life’s accomplishments:)
SearchIndia.com Responds:
No, it hasn’t released in the U.S. and Netflix doesn’t carry it (presumably because it has yet to release here).
But the movie attracted a lot of notice in the right quarters and we assume that helped Daniel land the Safe House assignment.
Has Safe House released in your country too?
Looks like it has.
Watched Journey 2 : The mysterious Island yesterday. Totally disappointed.
The overall acting was decent. So were the visuals, for the most part. Journey 2 is no Avatar or even The Adventures of Tin Tin. Both movies had spectacular visuals that blew my breath away. But Journey 2 never blew me away with the visuals, Merely decent and never for once makes you say aahs or oohs.
Despite Mysterious Island being unknown to mankind and despite the island being full of rich greenery, waterfalls, volcano that erupts gold, giant creatures and the like, it fails to make any impact whatsoever. I didn’t feel like I was ‘in the movie’, which I felt when watching both Avatar and Tin Tin.
Now for the 3D. I don’t remember much of Avatar but Tin Tin had some good 3D effects. Apart from two or three scenes, the 3D in Journey 2 was a big joke. I was of the view that the movie would have been much better in 2D. The only thing that was constantly in 3D was the english subtitles(yeah, in a few theaters they screen Hollywood movies with subs).
What about the story, you ask? Sean Anderson and his step dad Hank go to Mysterious Island along with Gabato, a tour guide who takes tourists for a ride on his helicopter and Kailani, his daughter. Sean received a coded message from his grandfather who tells him about Mysterious Island and gives him clues to the Island’s co-ordinates. Together, they reach the island, find Sean’s grandfather and escape from the island before it submerges back into the ocean. THE END.!!
Only a solid screenplay can salvage a movie with a wafer-thin story. Alas, the screenplay too isn’t solid, but not bad either..!!
Overall, not worth your time and money.
Btw, the girl who plays Kailini is sexy!!
SearchIndia.com Responds:
We watched the trailer a few weeks back and didn’t think much of it. Vaguely remember crash of a small aircraft…island…an old man…some predators etc.
But we were not impressed.
Ditto with a lot of other people. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/journey_to_the_center_of_the_earth_2_3d/