Safe House

Posted July 6, 2012 by Speed - 0 comments

Tobin Frost, the most dangerous CIA agent to have ever gone rogue suddenly pops up in the US embassy in South Africa and surrenders himself. He gets transferred to a nearby safe house but little after his arrival, armed men attack and kill the entire protection squad.

Matt Weston, keeper of the safe house, manages to get Tobin out just in time but with the attackers on their heels, he has not only the difficult task of keeping Tobin into custody, but also has to try to stay alive and figure out who’s after them.

Sound and Vision:
Safe House has a rather gritty look thanks to some intentional grain and oversaturated colors but facials remain natural and primary colors intact. Black levels are deep and contrast is quite good while the level of detail remains high at all times.

The soundtrack nears reference material with lots of discrete effects coming from the rear, dialogues being perfectly positioned and the subwoofer regularly kicking in when necessary to support action that’s going on on the screen.

Extras:
- Making Safe House
- Hand-to-Hand Action
- Building the Rooftop Chase
- Inside the CIA
- Safe Harbor: Cape Town
- Behind the Action
- Shooting the Safe House Attack
- U-Control

Universal is keen to point out there’s almost 2 hours of extras present, but that’s including the U-Control feature which is a picture-in-picture screen that features much of the footage displayed in the rest of the features. The features themselves are worth just under one hour with “Inside the CIA” and “Safe Harbor: Cape Town” being the two most interesting ones.

Conclusion:
Safe House is another espionage action thriller with Denzel Washington in a role he’s done tons of times already and as such plays with ease. Ryan Reynolds acts as his protector who has to figure out what the hell is going on while bullets are flying all around and as you can expect: he does it quite well.

All in all the movie isn’t exceptional though. The story is pretty straight forward and doesn’t contain much of a surprise, making this a nice action flick that unfortunately doesn’t stand out of the crowd. Also the question pops up why things are set in South Africa as this could have just as easily been filmed in the US or anywhere else for that matter.

If you’re looking for a fun action flick, then you can certainly give Safe House a try.

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