Blurry action, thin characters occupy 'Safe House'
In between the shooting and driving and jumping and chasing and crashing and punching and shoving and falling and stabbing and strangling and waterboarding, Daniel Espinosa's disposable action thriller "Safe House" barely has time for such luxuries as character development or clever plotting.
Still, the pairing of Denzel Washington's cynical veteran spy and Ryan Reynolds' idealistic, weepy-eyed CIA neophyte makes for a nice riff on a classic mentor/protégé relationship.
But these characters are hopelessly mired in a movie determined to continue Jason Bourne's mission to drive up Dramamine sales with an avalanche of blurry, disorienting, frenetic fight scenes edited with strobe-light harshness.
(No surprise. "Safe House" was shot in high contrast, supersaturated color footage by Oliver Wood of "The Bourne Ultimatum" and "The Bourne Supremacy.")
It's almost as if Espinosa and spec screenwriter David Guggenheim (not to be confused with Davis Guggenheim of "An Inconvenient Truth" fame) realized they were working on a generic movie of minimal substance, so they strategically planted shocking assassinations and car crashes into the script to keep us awake and alert.
We instantly understand that Reynolds' Matt Weston thinks he can handle better jobs than being a lowly "housekeeper" at a CIA safe house in South Africa.
He gets the chance to prove it when infamous renegade CIA traitor Tobin Frost (Washington) is brought into his safe house under the orders of Washington CIA honcho Harlan Whitford (Sam Shepard).
The CIA team (headed by "X-Files" star Robert Patrick) barely starts torturing Frost with water and knives before unknown assailants burst into the compound and wipe out everyone.
Everyone except Weston and his wily prisoner Frost, now on the run from the assassins in the streets of South Africa.
Back in D.C., one CIA lieutenant named Linklater (Vera Farmiga) thinks Weston has turned and is helping Frost escape; another one named Barlow (Brendan Gleeson) thinks Weston is struggling to bring Frost to justice.
The question puzzling both Weston and Frost is this: Only CIA agents knew Frost would be in the South African safe house. Who told the invaders?
About 10 minutes into "Safe House" - long before Weston and Frost even suspected a CIA snitch existed - I wrote the name of the bad apple on a piece of paper as proof of how transparently trite Guggenheim's script is.
Espinosa, an unknown to mainstream audiences (he directed a 2010 drug crime drama "Snabba Cash"), ineptly employs slow-motion shots of Reynolds crashing through a window and Washington's stunt double leaping over dwellings during one of many frantic chase sequences.
Some critics may be compelled to compare "Safe House" with Robert Redford's 1975 CIA thriller "Three Days of the Condor" because of the subject matter and the bluntly pro-free-press ending.
"Safe House" may not be a bore, but it would barely qualify as "A Half Day of the Condor."
“Safe House”
★ ★ ½
Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Denzel Washington, Sam Shepard, Vera Farmiga
Directed by: Daniel Espinosa
Other: A Universal Pictures release. Rated R for violence, language. 114 minutes