Safe House

The action is contained within a coherent dramatic structure and the puzzle-box paranoia of spy-agency protocol.

Movies don't come any brawnier than Safe House, and all that chaotic mayhem eventually beats the plot to a pulp.

Safe House isn't the most original of plots - it feels like a loose amalgamation of ten other spy flicks - but director Espinosa infuses his production with some bold choices, both in terms of technics and twists.

Moderately enjoyable, in its exhausting way. [5 March 2012, p. 87]

Swedish director Daniel Espinosa isn't as adept at chase scenes as "Bourne" director Paul Greengrass: We sometimes lose track of who's supposed to be where and which direction the bullets are flying.

In contrast with the fragmented kineticism of Paul Greengrass' "Bourne" movies, there's no existential dimension to the shattered-glass aesthetic here; it's just raw, chaotic action, inelegantly shot and staged but no less unnerving for it.

Safe House is an idea for a movie. It's a few blustery gestures in the direction of a story, with five good actors doing their best, trying to hold up the barest frame of an idea, while investing the surrounding emptiness with all the truth they can muster.

I was pumped to say that this is one of the best Ryan Reynolds films I've ever seen. Worth watching since we get to see Denzel and Ryan act with a load of action scenes.

Solid performances by Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynold's and a promising story are let down by a shallow ****'s a mostly okay movie in terms of espionage thrillers but it could have been more and a bit less predictable.

Denzel Washington is one of my favorite actors, and anyone who follows him knows that he is pure intensity. For that reason, he is usually best paired with someone who is charismatic, but in this film, he's paired with Ryan Reynolds, another intense actor, leading to a very straightforward and inflexible film. Safe House is your typical C.I.A. inspired action film, that features a wanted traitor turning himself in, in order to escape the men he's doubled crossed. The names and places are different, but the story is the same, lots of fighting and corruption, traitors and double agents, it's nothing new. The intensity in Safe House is just off the charts, as there isn't one second of comic relief. The movie starts intense and just continues that way until the end, which really does an injustice to the always strong performance of Washington. The fact of the matter is that this film could have been an interesting one, had Washington and Reynolds had any chemistry whatsoever, but they were basically the same person, on opposite sides of the table. Chemistry in a film like this is really everything, even in a film like Unstoppable, another straight forward and highly predictable film, it was entertaining because of the chemistry between Washington and Chris Pine. All in all, Safe House is an average film, without much of a supporting cast. It's two hours of chases and gun battles, over the same stuff that all these other films are based on. It's a textbook example of an action movie, with nothing else. It is forgettable and isn't unique in anyway, just the same thing you've seen a million times before.

Good acting I guess. Its just that the movie **** . Its no Jason Bourne. Its not even complicated. Its weak. Amazing how even with such good actors a script like this seems to slide past everyone.

In the beginning it starts out as an action filled thrilling movie, but than it loses its excitement and it becomes a simple action movie which we have tons off. The good actors performance like Denzel keep the movie running and stops you from running away screaming "HELL NOOOOO!!!!". No more to say and i was still generous with the 3/10