Movie review: Rogue espionage thrills in 'Safe House'

The hunt for Tobin Frost has finally come to an end. 

 

In Safe House, Denzel Washington is back as a misunderstood anti-hero. This time he’s the grizzled and hoary-headed Frost, currently number one on the CIA’s most wanted list. He’s been selling the top secrets of the CIA and the rest of the intelligence community to the highest bidder for almost a decade. 

 

Frost naturally has more enemies than you can shake a black ops book at, so it’s a big surprise to Agency bosses Catherine Linklater (Vera Farmiga) and David Barlow (Brendan Gleeson) when he walks into South Africa’s US consulate to get arrested. But I’m getting ahead of myself.   

 

 

The movie opens with Matt Weston (Ryan Reynolds), a low-level CIA flunky who's been based in Johannesburg for over a year without any action. He’s one of the many “housekeepers” (read: caretakers) of the titular safe houses that the Agency uses for operations around the world for billeting, incarceration, and the occasional information extraction. 

 

Desperate to move on and join his French girlfriend (the requisite eye candy, played by Nora Arnezeder) who's being transferred to France, Weston is waiting for a chance to prove himself. 

 

“How am I supposed to get more experience by staring at four walls all day?” he complains to Gleeson. 

 

In the spy game, you need to be careful just what you wish for. A double cross is revealed as a triple cross and so on and it’s still just another day at the CIA. See, at the same time that Weston was complaining to his superiors in Langley that he wants a transfer, Tobin Frost was trying to make a big deal go down smoothly.

 

Now in custody at Weston’s facility, the US extraction team —headed by Robert Patrick in a great cameo role as the squad leader— starts to question Frost in that very special and none-too-tender CIA way. 

 

As if on cue, that’s when the unknown (and very well-trained) group that was hunting Frost breaches the safe house. All protocol flies out the window as everyone on the extraction team is overrun and killed. 

 

At this point, Frost manages to suggest to the rookie Weston to “Remember rule number one: you are responsible for your house guest. I'm your house guest.” 

 

So, on Frost’s urging, they flee the safe house. All the fun begins there.

 

This is an explosive and promising action debut by director Daniel Espinosa. There are plenty of spy thrills and shoot `em ups as Weston tries his damnedest to re-transfer Frost to another facility. 

 

What should be just an average action flick is elevated to big air with its breakneck editing pace, an excellent movie score, and well-timed plot revelations. The galloping beat just never lets up. 

 

Add to that the amazing high-contrast cinematography and the use of South Africa’s locations (from the First World business district of Johannesburg to the corrugated sheet slums) and you’ve got a movie that hooks you right in. 

 

Exploring the motives and morals in the rogue spy world is unfolded in shades of grey and we can see how much Weston changes as he adventures in this new territory. His personality and simple convictions as a CIA house keeper undergo a sea change with a none-too-shabby body count. 

 

My friend was actually supposed to leave early because of a prior appointment but couldn’t move from his seat because of the suspense, and ended up making excuses so he could finish the movie. 

 

As ever, Washington’s portrayal of the rogue spy Frost is clever, capable and deceptively deadly. That people always underestimate him is the best weapon he has. He is the legendary spy, ghost and disillusioned operative all rolled into one. In the Agency he is at once admired and taught as a cautionary tale.   

 

As a corollary, Mr Van Wilder himself stretches his acting prowess here. He more than holds his own against the intense swagger of someone like Denzel. He executes this by combining movie thespianism with sheer physicality, marking big potential as the next big action hero as if he was gunning for the Bourne role. It’s almost enough to make you forget about Green Lantern. 

 

A great scene happens at the football stadium with a game in progress. It’s here that Frost makes great use of misdirection and guile to force Weston into getting them arrested by the local police. Frost then kills his captors with frightening ease even as Weston escapes his own bonds in pursuit. The two start a cat and mouse chase that pits their evasion and hunting abilities against each other. Cutting for sign and inventive use of guns without shooting anyone doesn’t get any better than this.  

 

While the movie does suffer from some genre pitfalls (how many times can the enemy turn out to be so close to home?), Safe House is an intelligent and satisfying action flick set in an exotic locale. Not your typical big budget Hollywood spy movie, defo.  — TJD, GMA News

 

SAFE HOUSE opened February 10 under Solar Entertainment and UIP.