Safe House is a recent Hollywood production with strong Swedish ties therefore we thought it might be appropriate to see it as a part of our monthly Stockholm film blog meetup ”Filmpanarna” this Saturday. When you have read my thoughts on it you can find links at the bottom for the other four bloggers that saw it with me.
Safe House is directed by Daniel Espinosa who is Sweden’s most interesting director right now. Ive seen two of his previous features Babylonsjukan and Easy Money (Snabba Cash), which is getting a limited theatrical release in the US on the 27th of July. When seeing Safe House its apparent he got that gig after directing Easy Money which is a good study of the criminal under world of Stockholm, do check it out if you have the chance.
Now over to Safe House heres a re-cap of the plot courtesy Douglas Young:
”Matt Weston (‘Ryan Reynolds’ ) is a CIA rookie who is manning a safe house in Cape Town, South Africa, when Tobin Frost (Denzel Washington) the CIAs most wanted rogue agent is captured and taken to the safe house. During Frost’s interrogation, the safe house is overtaken by mercenaries who want Frost. Weston and Frost escape and must stay out of the gunmen’s sight until they can get to another safe house.”
If you are expecting something else than the typical generical action/chase film you are bound for disappointment. Espinosa proves that it indeed is possible to make the Hollywood transition and doing a commercial film on the same turf as the best ones over there. Sure this is not the Fugitive in any way but Safe House is still entertaining enough to be worth checking out in the cinema.
The plot works well until the last third when it takes some wrong turns that I wished they had done different and the film would have benefitted from ending earlier than it did.
One problem I’d like to bring up is again the use of the alibi girlfriend/romantic subplot (as seen in Return to the Planet of the Apes and Real Steel just to mention two examples). The female character could easily have been edited out of the film without diminishing it. I wish that Hollywood and filmmakers in general started writing believable female characters that added something to the film.
Finally, I think Denzel does an awesome job playing a slightly different version of his Training Day character while Ryan Reynolds still has to prove himself as a bankable marquee star.
As said in the introduction I saw Safe House together with four other Swedish Filmbloggers on our monthly meet-up. If you are interested in joining us please e-mail at joelcomments[at]gmail.com and I’ll tell you more about our gathering.
Now over to the links:
Bilder och Ord, Frippes Filmrevyer, Fiffis Filmtajm and The Velvet Cafe.
Enjoy and let us know what you think about Safe House!
{ 20 comments… read them below or add one }
Hey Joel, what was your verdict? Give us a rating!
Fripps Filmrevyer (sometimes called Frippes Filmrevyer)
Haha low to average 3 out of 5…
”I wish that Hollywood and filmmakers in general started writing believable female characters that added something to the film. ”
This.
And I agree that the ending pulled it down a bit. Still a decent flick.
Yepp I couldn’t agree more.
Yeah, seems like in a LOT of action movies the female girlfriend/wife are often serve as mere embellishments, it’s quite embarrassing and sad really. ‘Rise to the Planet of the Apes’ is definitely a good example.
Btw I didn’t know about the Swedish ties in this movie, good to know, Joel.
Thanks for stopping by Ruth! There were actually a couple more Swedish ties wit the film since two Swedish actors had quite prominent roles in it. Fares Fares and Joel Kinnaman.
Believable female characters, oh yes, give them to me OR even more unbelievable ones for that matter, I´m not so picky. I just want to stop having the ”könskvoteringskänsla” (Google translate, sug på den!) when I see a film and I feel that a lot nowadays.
Yes I also rather see an unbelievable female character than these blend alibi characters that occupy screen time by being the obligatory love interest. Thats probably why I liked whats your number so much because both Anna Faris and Chris Evans felt like they were fleshed out characters.
While it was nice to see a female CIA-boss that didn’t have to affirm her sex by spending a few nanoseconds thinking about shopping and clothes, the role of the girlfriend was completely worthless. Ryan could just as well have had a dog that he worried about…
I actually had some issues with Farmiga mostly that she felt like a runaway character from endless seasons of the TV series 24!
Interesting. Care to elaborate? Bear in mind though that I’ve only seen the first season.
The girlfriend character was pointless. Well, I get that she was meant to give the audience some other aspect of Matt’s character to empathise with, but she added nothing. The relationship between Tobin and Matt was great, and with the girlfriend stuff cut out, adding more for them would have been much better.
It was a solid film. Good set pieces. Ticks most of the boxes for me.
I agree that they should have spent more time with Tobin and Matt instead of the pointless girlfriend/female audience alibi. Espinoza should have looked even more on the modern classic Midnight Run and taken some notes.
Thanks for stopping by Jaina!
Nice review Joel, this is looking like something I want to check out but will prob wait till its streaming on Netflix. With the price of theater tickets I don’t think I can justify seeing this at the cinemaplex.
I can’t really blame you. I enjoyed it and I think it was interesting for me as a Swede to see it, thats what motivated my trip to the cinema this time!
Yea totally agree the romantic subplot between Reynold’s character and the French medical student was completely extraneous. Overall, it’s a hard-hitting thriller with some solid performances but the story is just completely generic. By the end, you don’t even know why Denzel’s character was so driven to do what he was doing.
Well I thought that was quite clear. He wanted to reveal the conspiracy and foul play within the bureau?
I wish Reynolds would star in better material.
Yes but you could also make the point that Reynolds is dragging his films down with him due to his performance. I think he is a bit overrated as a an old school Marquee Star.
Joel – just found your site and I am 2 for 2 with you so far.
The only reason for the girl in this movie must have been to fill in minutes.
Or it was an attempt to show Weston’s a regular guy. I did not get the point nor did I care.
The othe thing that aggravated me a bit was the up close fight scenes.
They made me appreciate the one in the Bourne movies more.
{ 3 trackbacks }