Safe House

As 2012 has come I have felt a huge weight lift off my chest. This old weight was the agony of having to watch sequels and movies that were part of a franchise, throughout all of last year. Here's a quick fact for you. 13 out of the 14 big blockbusters last year were part of a franchise, meaning they were all additional movies in a series, or were adapted from well known comics or TV shows. So starting the year with great things like Hugo, Chronicle and now Safe House, makes me so much happier.

The movie is set up and appears to be a standard spy movie. There are good guys and bad guys, going after one thing and theres lots of fighting and gunfire throughout it. Safe House had ties with this standard storyline, but it was so different in its own way again. Safe House follows Matt Weston (Ryan Reynolds), a rookie CIA agent who is a "housekeeper" of a CIA safe-house in Capetown. While Matt is boring himself to death at this safe-house each day, a highly wanted fugitive called Tobin Frost, (Denzel Washington) is found and is being brought to the safe-house for questioning. While the CIA agents are interrogating Frost, the house is breached by a crew of thug type hitmen who are after Frost too. The CIA agents are overwhelmed and before you know the only people left are Weston, Frost and the thugs. 

Because Weston wants to prove himself as a good agent,  he takes Frost and there are numerous car chases and shootouts, with Frost changing hands between the thugs and Weston. While all of this is happening in Capetown, the CIA officials at the American Headquarters are tossing up weather or not Weston is a fugitive like Frost or if he is trying to do the right thing and turn Frost in. The story is told a lot through the CIA Headquarters discussions and I think that was quite a good technique because it didn't take you out of the story at all and was a good addition of suspense wondering who Weston really was. The end ties all the loose ends together and exposes all of the characters true beings, which totally went against what I thought of them the whole story. 

The script for Safe House was brilliant, there wasn't too much dialoge but just enough to keep it a good thriller/action film. The camera shots were complex and took me back to the days of Jason Bourne with the high amounts of camera shake, something we don't see to much these days. The sound was loud and broke and added suspense very well and the acting was pulled of well, with the big name star, Washington as the main antagonist and Reynolds as the underdog, "goog guy" who you are willing on. 

Safe House was a fantastic movie, I highly recommend it. It was high action and never had moments without different emotions being conveyed. The thing I liked most about it was the originality and they way you were always guessing what was coming and trying to piece everything together. Safe House was one of the best movies I have seen this year and for that I am giving it 4 and a half out of 5 stars. 

See the Trailer for Safe House here.