Safe House, directed by Daniel Espinosa, sees ambitious and frustrated CIA agent Matt Weston (Ryan Reynolds) finally get the chance to prove his worth to the powers that be. Matt has always wanted to show his seniors what he is and when rogue agent Tobin Frost (Denzel Washington) is brought to his safe house he thinks he has finally been given that chance. But things rapidly take a turn for the worse as a group of heavily armed mercenaries appear and begin killing. Now Matt must protect Tobin as they both try to uncover who is behind this attack and how they knew where to find them. Matt was trained to follow orders and protect the innocent, but as the two lines begin to merge he realises he may not be able to do both.
Ryan Reynolds is an actor I have a great appreciation for. In my opinion he is best in his comedy roles such as in Just Friends (2005), Waiting (2005) and a personal favourite of mine Adventureland (2009). But since 2006 film Smokin’ Aces he seems to have a taken a turn, changing the type of role he plays. He seems to favour the action hero lately which seems to be working for him. He manages to bring his comical personality with him to these roles and create something new. Even in Buried (2010) where he is (as the title suggests) buried alive, he still managed to force a few laughs from me even in such a dire situation. Ryan is a very versatile actor and will have no problem keeping up with action veteran Denzel Washington in this hard hitting action film.
What is there to be said about Denzel Washington that hasn’t been said over a hundred times before? Nothing.......but I’ll continue anyway. Denzel can sometimes get some grief from critics claiming he only plays one role, the government official who doesn’t play by the rules but gets the job done. Well yeah, I suppose that is true but is that necessarily a bad thing? I stick to the belief that is you are good at something, why stop doing it? Denzel does play the same roles but got damn he’s good at it! I would however like to see him in some different roles in the future but I’m not going to complain too loudly if he continues to deliver the same high quality performances we have become accustomed to.
So Safe House is set to be an action packed, adrenaline pumping, high octane shoot ‘em up film doesn’t sound too bad to me. I tend to not make a habit of going to the cinema for action films but its ok for you once in a while. I will be going to see this though mainly because of the fact Ryan Reynolds is the lead and that guy is just pure entertainment.
Safe House is in cinemas February 10.