Safe House [DVD]

suppose it was same old same old, i.e CIA , chase type scenes, double crossing, but the action is great, not stop shooting and car chases and not far fetched like crank movies.
the flow of the film is great, keep me interested to the end.
glad i never read the negative reviews and just watched it, recommend if you like bourne, salt type movies.

Matt Weston (Ryan Reynolds -Waiting) is a house-keeper. For the CIA. His job involves keeping and tending to a secure agency location in Cape Town, South Africa. Matt is going out of his mind with boredom and pleads with CIA director & mentor David Barlow (Brendan Gleeson - The Guard) to find him another placement as 12 months and not a single house-guest has left him no chance to prove himself to the agency. That is until CIA turncoat Tobin Frost (Denzel Washington - Man On Fire) turns himself in unexpectedly at the US Consulate. Transferred to Matt's safe-house with a heavy-fire team, this looks like Matt's chance until the team are all killed by the people chasing Frost. With no other CIA assets in the area, it's now up to Matt to take care of his ward and deliver him to the agency, will Matt manage to stay alive for long enough to deliver Frost? Are things that straight forward?

Safe House is a tense and well-filmed affair; credit to director Daniel Espinosa, filmed in the picturesque surrounds of South Africa. It's a high-tension affair with a lone agent endlessly pursued by a heavily-armed force all the while trying to transport his prisoner, who is playing psychological games with him the entire time. It's a great performance from Washington, but he has played this type of role many times. Ryan Reynolds is good here, but it's not a runaway performance by any means despite the fantastic box-office figures ($85m budget, $202m generated) thanks to choppy action sequences, that look like they are frenetic, but you just end up losing track when you are left watching an 115-minute long alternating stream of gunshots and car-crashes, back-dropped by some thinly-described CIA conspiracy story.

Extra Content: A featurette titled: "Behind the Action" - interesting seeing the fights inside of a car, but ultimately, nothing too outlandish.

Recommended for a pulse-heightening action movie, but it's not going to blow you away despite solid performances from the actors.

Denzil Washington is back on our screens in this action thriller as Tobin Frost a rogue CIA agent on the run. But he's not on the run alone, he's escorted by Matt Weston, the young CIA agent (Ryan Reynolds), who was supposed to keep Frost nicely safe and locked up in a Safe House pending interrogation by the CIA. But that plan went pear-shaped when a bunch of guys from who-knows-where blasted the big steel door off and came charging in, guns blazing and didn't seem to care who they shot as long as it wasn't each other. Weston wants to know why Frost is such hot property, Frost wants to know why he was getting shot at too. We, the audience, know that Frost is carrying a secret, a list of people. If it gets into the wrong hands and becomes public then a lot of the world's secret agencies are going to be very unhappy bunnies. Frost was about to get millions for the sale of the list until other men in black got in his way and he had to turn himself in to stay alive. Can our Denzel really be a baddy? Watch the movie and find out. It certainly looks that way.

Safe House has received mixed reviews from Joe Public but while I accept it isn't a top notch thriller, I enjoyed it. I watched it without expectations which is always a good thing. Bits of it felt like watching a Bourne movie although I didn't think the fight sequences were choreographed half as excitingly, and I didn't think the car chase scenes were half as 'exhilarating' as Jason Bourne driving that mini in Bourne Identity. You have to decide for yourself and I suggest you check out one or two YouTube clips to get a better impression than can be given in written reviews. You must remember the times that someone has told you they hated a movie and you liked it, and vice versa. I think a lot of the disappointment is down to expectations and it seems that a lot of movie watchers nowadays want a lot less drama and a lot more blood with their popcorn. But, personally, I don't enjoy watching a movie without some quiet moments to contrast with the action. Also, with Denzel Washington, the bar is perhaps set unrealistically high.

There are a few very familiar faces in this, apart from Denzel. Ryan Reynolds was in X:Men Origins - Wolverine. Vera Farmiga was in The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and Source Code. Brendan Gleeson was in In Bruges, Breakfast on Pluto and stars as Alastair 'Mad Eye' Moody in some of the Harry Potter movies. The lovely Sam Shepard also has a small role. He's looking a little older nowadays (aren't we all?) One of my favourite films starring him recently is Black Hawk Down (2011).

Oh, and the movie has an excellent soundtrack, I think. You can check it out on iTunes.

Further reviews of mine can be seen on my Movies and Book website, shown on my profile. Thanks for reading this. x