Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds spend most of Safe House in motion, and the film never gives them a good reason to stop. Daniel Espinosa’s 2012 action thriller runs 115 minutes, moves from a Cape Town safe house to a Cape Town consulate to a Cape Town stadium, and asks one question the whole way: who wants Tobin Frost dead? The answer arrives, but it arrives late, and the trip there is louder than it is tense.
Trailer, via SafeHousetheMovie.
A Housekeeper Named Matt Weston
Ryan Reynolds plays Matt Weston, a junior CIA officer stuck on a low-level posting in Cape Town, South Africa. His job is to keep a safe house ready in case an operation needs one. He has held the posting a year without a single houseguest, which means no field experience, which means no transfer to Paris.
That is the whole of Weston’s motivation, and it is a thin one. He calls his mentor and superior David Barlow, played by Brendan Gleeson, to ask about a station in Paris. Barlow tells him he is likely underqualified. Weston lives with his girlfriend Ana, a young French physician about to start her residency, played by Nora Arnezeder. The film wants us to care about the Paris plan. It gives us almost nothing to hold.
Then the houseguest arrives.
Tobin Frost Surrenders at the Consulate
Denzel Washington is Tobin Frost, a former CIA NOC operative turned international criminal. Frost has spent a decade on the run. In Cape Town he acquires a data storage device from Alec Wade, a rogue MI6 officer played by Liam Cunningham. A team of mercenaries attacks them and kills Wade. Frost flees, runs out of options, and surrenders to the American consulate.
A team led by veteran Daniel Kiefer, played by Robert Patrick, moves Frost to Weston’s safe house for interrogation before he goes back to the United States. Weston watches Kiefer’s team waterboard Frost. He watches uneasily, which is the film’s way of telling us Weston has a conscience and no power.
The mercenaries, led by Vargas and played by Fares Fares, attack the safe house and kill Kiefer and his team. Weston escapes with Frost. The two men, one a rookie and one a veteran the agency believes has turned on it, are now stuck together.
Linklater, Barlow and Whitford in Langley
Weston contacts Barlow at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. On the call with him are Catherine Linklater, played by Vera Farmiga, the operative in charge of Frost’s interrogation and Kiefer’s superior, and CIA Deputy Director Harlan Whitford, played by Sam Shepard, who oversees the operation.
Linklater, advised by Barlow, orders Weston to lie low and wait for instructions. That order is the engine of the middle act. Weston cannot trust the people giving him orders, and the film cannot decide how much of that mistrust to make us feel.
Weston calls Ana and gives her a cover story. He tells her his office has been threatened and suggests she stay with friends. Their apartment appears to be under surveillance. Ana is a physician, not an operative, and the film uses her the way these films always use the person at home: as a stake, not a character.
The Killers Stay One Step Ahead
The mercenaries track Weston and Frost through Cape Town. They seem to be one step ahead of the pair at every turn, which is the film’s central mechanical problem. A chase only works if the audience believes the gap could close. Safe House keeps the gap fixed and fills it with gunfire.
Espinosa shoots the action close and cuts it fast. The result is noise without geography. You can see that a fight is happening. You often cannot see where anyone is standing, what they are shooting at, or how Weston gets from one room to the next. The editing of the action scenes drew negative criticism on release, and it earns that criticism here. A car chase through Cape Town should be the best sequence in the movie. It is a blur.
Washington is the exception. Frost is a man who has been doing this longer than anyone in the room, and Washington plays him with a stillness that the rest of the film lacks. He does not need to move fast because he has already decided what happens next. Reynolds plays Weston as a man who has decided nothing and is learning in real time. The two performances work, and they work against each other, which is the point.
What the Safe House Actually Is
The title promises a movie about a place. Safe House is not that movie. The safe house is attacked and abandoned inside the first act. After that, the film is a chase with a conspiracy attached, and the conspiracy is the part that matters.
The agency believes Frost has betrayed it. Weston has been ordered to keep him alive and hand him over. The mercenaries want Frost dead. Someone in Langley wants something, and the film takes its time saying what. The device Frost took from Wade is the object everyone is chasing, and the film treats it as a mystery until the last act, when it becomes the answer.
That structure is not a flaw by itself. Plenty of good thrillers run on an object and a question. The flaw is that Safe House does not build. Each set piece resets the board rather than raising the stakes. Weston and Frost escape, regroup, get found, escape again. The middle hour is a loop.
Cast Against Material
The supporting cast is deeper than the script deserves. Vera Farmiga, Brendan Gleeson and Sam Shepard play three people in a room in Langley, and the film never gives them a scene worth the three of them. Rubén Blades appears as Carlos Villar. Joel Kinnaman appears as Keller. Jenna Dover appears as a CIA analyst. These are names on a call sheet, not roles.
David Guggenheim’s screenplay is the film’s weakest element. The dialogue is functional. The twists are telegraphed. The characters explain the plot to each other because the plot needs explaining. A thriller should make the audience do some of the work. Safe House does all of it for you and then repeats itself.
Espinosa makes his English-language debut here, and the film has energy. It does not have control. The Cape Town locations are used well as locations and poorly as geography. The city is a backdrop, not a map.
The Numbers Behind Safe House
- Release date: February 10, 2012, in U.S. theaters, by Universal Pictures
- Premiere: New York City, February 7, 2012
- Runtime: 115 minutes
- Budget: $85 million
- Worldwide gross: $208 million
- Metacritic: 52/100
- Genre: Action, Thriller
- Tagline: “No one is safe”
The commercial math is not close. Safe House earned $208 million worldwide against an $85 million budget, which makes it a success by any measure the industry uses. Espinosa got his English-language debut. Washington got a hit. Reynolds got a hit in the same year he was building toward something bigger.
What Actually Matters Here
The box office is the least interesting fact in this file. The interesting fact is that Safe House made $208 million with a screenplay that drew negative criticism and action editing that drew more. That tells you what the movie is selling, and it is not the plot.
It is selling Washington. He has been selling this exact product for two decades, and he is still better at it than anyone. Frost is not a new character. He is a familiar one played with total control. The scene where Weston watches Kiefer’s team waterboard Frost is the best in the film because Washington does nothing. He sits there and takes it, and you understand that he has taken worse.
Reynolds is the other half of the sale. He plays Weston as a competent man in over his head, which is a harder note than it sounds. He does not play it for laughs. He plays it straight, and the film is better for it.
So the ranking of what works in Safe House is short and clear:
- Denzel Washington as Tobin Frost
- Ryan Reynolds as Matt Weston
- The Cape Town locations
- The premise of a rookie guarding a veteran
- Everything else
The screenplay sits at the bottom. The editing sits below that. A film with an $85 million budget and two leads this good should not feel like a pilot for a series that never got picked up.
The Verdict on Safe House
Safe House is a watchable movie with a good idea and no follow-through. It has two performances worth the ticket and a script that does not trust them. It has a city worth filming and a director who cannot decide where to put the camera. It has a conspiracy worth unraveling and a reveal that lands with a shrug.
The film earned mixed reviews on release, with praise for Washington and Reynolds and criticism for the screenplay and the action editing. That split is correct, and it is also the whole story. Safe House is not a bad movie. It is an average one with above-average parts, which is a specific and frustrating thing to watch.
The tagline says no one is safe. The truth is that nothing in this film is in danger, least of all the audience’s attention. You know Weston and Frost will survive. You know the device will matter. You know the traitor is in the room in Langley. The film confirms all three and charges you 115 minutes for the confirmation.
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