The Driving Miss Daisy remake just got sexier.
Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds in a big budget action film? Sounds like a predictable, safe (ah ha!) choice.
It is.
TL;DR Everything is slick and polished. Clocks in at almost 2 hours, so points off for that, but otherwise this is exactly what it tries to be: action fodder. 4 out of 5 stars.
You know I just hate everything, but sometimes a movie comes along that is so formula you can't help but respect its lack of ambition.
Safe House is one of those movies.
The plot has something to do with CIA agents selling secrets. Same old same old. Ryan Reynolds is an agent looking after a safe house, which the CIA uses to hold assets or something. I don't care. Most of that evaporates as soon as the action begins, and it wasn't necessary.
Pretty much everyone (except Reynolds) is a traitor blah blah murder espionage blah.
What Safe House does right is focus on the action. Every action sequence looks incredible. High production values really can carry a movie, apparently.
I have to give particular praise to the car chase scene early on. No CGI bullshit (or if there is, it's covered well), and the roads are packed with cars and obstacles. It just looks amazing and makes you feel like something is actually at stake.
The characters are the only reason to hate on this movie. Reynolds' character Weston, in particular.
Early on in the movie (following the attack on the safe house and his escape with Denzel), Weston is instructed to return to the consulate and stop trying to capture Denzel. He refuses during a conference call with all of his bosses, and the plot is able to move forward.
The problem is his absolute lack of motivation. All we know about Weston is that he's bored as fuck at his post in the safe house and wants to prove himself to get a better job. He also has a girlfriend he actually cares about.
His decision to pursue Washington not only makes his girlfriend real pissed off (and she leaves the country fearing for her life), but fucks up any chance he has of getting a better job. Now, he didn't know that everyone he works for was a goddamn lunatic trying to kill him, but it's pretty fucking stupid to tell your bosses to go fingerpop themselves when you're looking for a promotion (which is the only reason he continues the mission). Lame.
Why I hate this movie:
Weston should have just given up and gone back to the consulate. He would have been bored, but at least he would have had a job and a girlfriend (and not gotten a dozen innocent people killed, one of whom is a police officer he shoots arbitrarily).
Washington's character is a bit too goody goody for someone who has apparently been selling CIA secrets to any buyer for the past decade. He even comes back to save Weston at the end. While this is super cute (and great for gay jokes), it doesn't really make sense. We find out he's actually trying to out the corrupt CIA bosses. But he's also been profiting from state secrets 9 years prior to his current endeavour. Awkward.
Vera Farmiga copy/pastes her performance from Source Code. She still does a good job, but her character is hollow and gets shot the fuck up anyway.
Everything is fucking blue as fuck, too. Thanks, Transformers.
Reasons to watch:
Did I mention how great the action looks? It really does. No, really.
And there's nary a CGI wankfest in sight. Thank. Fuck.
The production values are impressive. The stadium scenes have hundreds of extras running around, and the street scenes are the same. This is how action movies should look.
And the good guys win in the end, with no pathetic sequel hooking.
Verdict:
When my only real gripe with this movie is character motivation, and its only trying to be a formula action movie, I'm not gonna be a dick about it. Taking a star off for the running time, though. 4 out of 5 stars.
Those gay jokes just keep on cumming (ah ha!).
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