Safe House (2012)

Running Time: 117 minutes.

Media: Cinematic screening.

A few weeks ago I had the incredible opportunity of watching this movie with my girlfriend in the Gold Class cinemas at Castle Hill's Event Cinema Megaplex. This wasn't my first time in Gold Class, but bearing in mind that my first film I saw at Gold Class was James Cameron's Avatar, which was a whopping 171 minutes, and in 3D I didn't have much time to truly investigate the environment I was to watch this film.

The food was excellent and was served promptly... The shredded pork nachos was to die for... as well as their "Dynamite Squid"... I enjoyed these on chairs that I never knew until recently were capable of reclining! Why didn't I know this in my first trip back in 2009??

Anyhow, I digress... I'll probably put in a post some time later about cinemas and the like, but for the mean time, it's back to the review! Safe House, geez.. I came out of this blown away by the incredible "BAM!" factor that kept repeating itself over and over and over again... Surprisingly, you don't get bored of this, because you keep anticipating when it's gonna happen, and you miss it... and then as soon as your guard lowers, "BAM!" - they hit you again! I think I experienced this in at least five separate moments throughout the film, as I lost count after that. Ryan Reynolds plays his part well as a low-level CIA agent, Matthew Weston, who acts as a "housekeeper", an agent who maintains a safe house in South Africa. Along comes a convoy of agents, who with Denzel Washington, who plays ex-CIA agent (now turned rogue), Tobin Frost, become the target of a group of assassins. Both Frost and Weston escape, part ways, re-unite, ad nauseum; but with multiple action sequences in between...

Suffice it to say, you are NEVER gonna be bored with this one. Denzel, regardless of his character, regardless of which film he stars in, is always is cool and calm... That's just Denzel... Ryan on the other hand, could very well be our next brand of action hero; always thinking on his feet and thorough. I will confess, in the Ryan side of things... this film craps all over Green Lantern. I'm sorry, Ryan... a lot of people crapped on that film a lot... I do like Green Lantern, but Safe House is far better.

I have one teeny, tiny little problem with this film... and it's not my fault, let alone theirs... well, okay, maybe it is their fault, a bit... The film falls flat in one area, and that is with the incorporation of a character called "Ana Moreau", played by actress and singer Nora Arnezeder... I found her character flat and dimensionless, and to be perfectly honest, it seems she was added into the screenplay to pad it a little and to give the character of Weston a little more emotional depth... I personally feel that the movie would have worked just as well without her and that while her being in this film did allow the movie to end on a more peaceful note, the writers did not even do so well in that either. As a result, I can't give Safe House the five-star rating it deserves.

Regardless of this, the film, featuring twists you could never see coming, as well as an incredible panorama of the culture and life of South Africa, where this movie was filmed; Safe House, receives 4½ stars.