Written by Burhan Wazir, New Media, DFI

Film: Safe House
Director: Daniel Espinosa
Stars: Denzel Washington, Ryan Reynolds, Vera Farmiga, Brendan Gleeson
Running time: 115 mins

Denzel Washington, who turned 57 last December, has been leaping through explosions and returning gunfire for a number of years now. “Safe House” follows “Unstoppable”, “The Book of Eli” and “The Taking of Pelham 1, 2, 3”. Many of his friends might describe this turn of events as a career crisis. Yet he appears in rude health. In “Safe House”, Washington, who plays a former CIA operative Tobin Frost, leaps from rooftops. He races from city to township in a 4X4. He runs and kicks and tackles any number of anonymous henchmen. It is exhausting just to see him.

“Safe House”, directed by Swede Daniel Espinosa, is the latest addition in a series of conspiracy thrillers – “Wanted”, “Shooter”, “Knight and Day” – that could make for an interesting alternative to the traditional bankers away day. The story, or the glue which holds together a series of tense and sometimes rewarding action chases together, starts in Cape Town where Matt Weston (Ryan Reynolds), is charged with the security of a safe house. When we first meet Frost, members of the CIA are attempting to extract information through waterboarding. The film-makers have not sought to consult any real victims of water torture. Throughout the ordeal, Washington maintains a look of mild bemusement.

From then on, the story shifts into acceleration mode as the building is infiltrated by hordes of gun wielding mercenaries seeking Frost. CIA officials are killed and Weston escapes to deliver Frost to another secure location. We are treated to a quick tour of Capetown – Weston loses Frost during a shootout at a football match, only to find his quarry mired in another gun battle in a shanty town. The viewer barely has time to admire Cape Town’s sparkling underground railway system. There is, of course, a point to all this aerobic exercise. Weston is concealing a microchip, implanted in his skin when we first see it, which contains the names of corrupt Mossad, CIA and MI6 agents. He plans to sell the information to the highest bidder.

If all this sounds like an appetizer for the next round of Jason Bourne films, it is worth noting that cinematographer Oliver Wood worked on the Matt Damon trilogy. Here, he and Espinosa use multiple cameras to duck and weave between shots, going in close for fight scenes, far and wide for chase sequences. The result isn’t narrative bedlam: the timing of the action scenes is crisp and the chronology of each fight sequence, often seen through multiple views, is both coherent and rational. The film which looks as if it was sandblasted of colour, looks visually beautiful.

Apart from an occasional pause, Washington has little chance to deliver a nuanced performance. We learn that he once survived a CIA-backed sabotaging of an airplane, in which his wife and children died. Their deaths have led to him becoming a rogue operative. This is an all too brief attempt at three dimensional rendering and we are quickly whisked away from Frost’s grief when the film returns to a whiplash inducing sequence of hand-to-hand combat. In comparison, Ryan Reynolds plays rookie to Washington’s seasoned veteran, both in character and as actor. He has little cause to extend his range beyond a worried, bloodied grimace. Many talented individuals were undoubtedly involved in the making of “Safe House”; as the credits rolled across the screen, I couldn’t help but notice the long list of stuntmen and choreographers credited. In the end, the actors are merely props, arranged to be shot, stabbed and strangled.