Odd-pair chemistry in Johannesburg
Matt Weston (Ryan Reynolds) is a CIA agent, charged with keeping a safe house active in Johannesburg. His life is steady, predictable – and boring.
Matt wants a transfer to become a field agent but he should be careful what he wishes for.
Enter Tobin Frost (Denzel Washington), rogue CIA agent, who has been selling information to the highest bidder, and who suddenly gives himself up at the American consulate.
He’s brought to Matt’s safe house, and all hell breaks loose.
Matt gets his wish to be a field agent when the team brought in to question Frost is summarily executed and the safe house is compromised. Cue much action and shooting.
Safe House is one of those movies that you enjoy at the time – it’s action-packed, the acting is pretty near top-notch, but afterwards you have to pause to remember anything concrete that happened.
I’m left with vague impressions of not feeling as though I’d wasted my time, and of Denzel Washington being a bad ass. Oh, and of Ryan Reynolds taking off his shirt, which is never a waste of time.
It has the feel of a good Sunday night movie. You don’t want to engage your brain too much when you hit the play button, but you want to be entertained and not feel like you’re wasting your time.
The story is fairly straightforward, but there are some areas to give your own grey matter a bit of a workout, modern morality-wise, and Washington and Reynolds – both fine actors in their own right – have a nice odd couple kind of chemistry as a sort of twisted mentor/student.
Definitely worth a look.