Posted 10:37 pm Friday, February 17, 2012
Denzel Washington Appears Bored In Generic ‘Safe House'
How does a script as generic as "Safe House" get talent such as Sam Shepard and Brendan Gleeson on board?
It's no surprise that Denzel Washington or Ryan Reynolds showed up in this snoozer of an action flick. Washington's no stranger to this sort of stuff. For every "American Gangster" or "Training Day" or "Man on Fire" (i.e. films that are interesting, challenging and/or have him working with interesting directors), we get an "Out of Time" or "Deja vu" or "Unstoppable." The man has been largely cruising along on his own innate charm for more than a decade. Reynolds, on the other hand, is still a young, hungry actor eager to earn the status of leading man that (merited or not) has been thrust upon him. Who, in his situation, wouldn't leap at a chance to square off against the likes of Washington?
The participation of Shepard and Gleeson, however, sort of baffles. Both are accomplished, exceptional actors, the former is also an accomplished playwright. Every actor who isn't Tom Cruise or Will Smith (or even, to an extent, Washington) has to slum it from time to time in order to pay the bills. But given the sorts of films those men typically aim for, "Safe House" seems wildly out of place. Then again, Shepard was in "Stealth," so maybe it's not so completely surprising. The overarching point is that the material here is beneath his and Gleeson's talents and it's frustrating.
The plot is almost all surface stuff. Matt Weston (Reynolds) is a young CIA agent eager to prove his mettle, a task that's become exceedingly difficult given he spends his days as "housekeeper" of a safe house in Cape Town. The safe house has gone months without any use, making Weston all the more anxious to climb his way to a better spot within the agency. That chance falls into his lap when Tobin Frost (Washington), a rogue agent who has spent the last nine years selling state secrets, gets brought in.
One water boarding sessions later and a gang of faceless henchmen burst into the safe house, intent on getting their hands on Frost and the valuable information package (more specifically, a microchip) he has in his possession. Weston is the last man standing and manages to extract Frost from the safe house, intent on bringing him in to his superiors. Frost, of course, has other plans and the rest of the film is Weston attempting to stay on his trail.
There's probably a good movie somewhere in here, but you'd be hard-pressed to find it. There's plenty of car chases and shootouts and the gritty, overexposed, shaky cam cinematography suitably mimics the sort of overcooked style that Tony Scott's made his bread-and-butter for the last decade or so. For some that will be enough.
I couldn't find a suitable reason to care about anything that happened between the opening title and closing credits.
There's probably a good movie in here that addresses the moral ambiguity and complexity of what Tobin Frost did. His package contains information which details the actions and identity of numerous corrupt intelligence executives around the world. It's insinuated that Frost obtained this information through years of his own underhanded actions, actions that were perceived as traitorous. This is all left in the background, however, and never directly addressed as director Daniel Espinosa seems far more intent on staging borderline incoherent gun battles and car chases. At this point, directors might as well splash "I HAVE NO TALENT" in big, bold text across the screen as they shake their camera like an epileptic so as to mask their inability to competently and coherently stage an action beat.
Worse is the lack of any sort of character development. The sloppy action beats might've been tolerable had we cared about any of the characters involved, but I couldn't find a single reason to care about either Frost or Weston. Detailing even two defining characteristics of either man is futile. There's simply nothing there.
It doesn't help that Washington couldn't be less interested in being on-screen. The man has made most of his career out of playing charming, smirking, charismatic characters who at the very least exude a specific sort of personality. Every now and then he even takes on roles that require a certain intensity (i.e. "Man on Fire" and "American Gangster"), but none of that fire or interest can be found in a single second of this film. Congratulations, Denzel, you've joined the hallowed ranks of "Phoning It In" alongside Robert De Niro and Bruce Willis.
"Safe House" is a bad movie. There are no two ways about it. It's a lazy, boring, pointless bit of overly familiar material delivered by a lead actor who could barely be bothered to show up.
Grade: D-
Stewart Smith is the Entertainment Editor for the Tyler Morning Telegraph. Contact him at 903-596-6301 or by e-mail at ssmith@tylerpaper.com.
