I'm writing this while waiting for news of a university faculty strike, which appears to never really be called on or called off.  A few weeks ago, I did a little campaign managing for a friend running for student union president. He lost, but I'd like to think that we put up a hell of a fight going down. It took considerably time, and effort, which myself and a few others did for him, with the promise of a better student union. He proposed taking us out for a movie in gratitude for our service, and he chose Safe House.
 
The general premise is that Tobin Frost, a former CIA agent gone rogue, is on the run in South Africa from some arab-looking men, and decides to turn himself in to the CIA so he will have some protection.  They take him to a safe house, run by Matthew Weston. Weston is a young man, with a nice girlfriend, looking to get a better assignment after spending months babysitting an empty house. The security of the house is breached, all the good guys die, except for Frost and Weston, and they take off to find a new safe house. Gun fights, narrow encounters with police, and internal corruption ensue.

This movie wasn't bad, but it certainly wasn't good. In the beginning of the movie, they really play up that Frost is really good at psychological manipulation. Because of this, I spent the whole movie expecting some sort of crazy mind-games from him, but they never came. There were a few feeble attempts, but they weren't really credible. Given the whole psychological aspect was thrown out the window, the movie descended into mindless shoot-em-up mode. Every time there was a lull of any kind, there were explosions and gun fire almost instantly. The movie theater was pretty much ringing with a hail of bullets for the entire two hours that we were there. Personally, I prefer movies with a little more plot, and a little less whatever this movie had instead. It also had that grainy, jerky style of cinematography that you usually get in this sort of movie. I don't like that either.



In the good news category, the scenery was pretty cool. Ryan Reynolds and Denzel Washington did the best they could, but it really seemed like a scripting issue. I know they both can do better, so I was sorely disappointed. I, and every other girl in that theater, are big fans of Reynolds. Even my boyfriend said once that he was a "real man". I don't know how handsome, manful Ryan became the twitchy rookie that was in this film.

All in all, maybe worth renting, but not worth the theater. I'd give it a 4/10.