Safe House (review)

The ‘Safe House’ in question is a secure facility for the Central Intelligence Agency in Cape Town, South Africa. (Why in South Africa? Maybe they had the best tax benefits for filming in that country?) Besides the United States Embassy, there is a CIA run safe house in South Africa. It is also not the only one in South Africa, as the movie later discloses. Whether or not any of this is true, it can make for a good story line.

The movie is packed with several big stars. Matt Weston (Ryan Reynolds) is a young and untested ‘housekeeper’ who monitors the safe house for the CIA. When an ex-CIA agent (turned into a traitor after dealing and selling state secrets) named Tobin Frost (Denzel Washington) is captured, he is brought into the safe house. He was at one time the best field agent and he is known for his ability to persuade people to do his will. Who do you think he will begin to talk to?

Frost is brought in by Daniel Kiefer (Robert Patrick) and his armed ‘extraction’ team. What they intend to ‘extract’ is information from Tobin Frost. Got the washcloths? Got the 5 gallon jug of water? Got the prisoner well shackled to the chair? Good, let’s begin waterboarding. See the ‘extract’ team must really be the bad guys, right? No not really, since a group of even more heavily-armed men break in and commence shooting up everything and everyone. Kiefer and all his team are killed. Weston manages to escape and brings Frost so he can get him to a safe house, perhaps one that is actually safe.

Why are all those evil gun-toting vaguely Mid-Eastern looking people after Tobin Frost? Does it have to do with the mysterious data file that he got from an ex-MI6 agent, the one who is shot and killed when he and Frost are attempting to leave Cape Town? Frost had already taken the file and had injected under his skin for safe keeping. Let’s hope he does not live to regret that decision.

But now on the lam from the thugs chasing him and Tobin, they jack a car and beat it out of there. But they are found by the baddies and have an extended street chase scene. It is filmed perfectly and looks very realistic. Weston and Frost escape again and Weston calls into Langley headquarters. His boss David (Brendon Gleeson) and another field agent boss Catherine (Vera Famiga) are monitoring the unfolding situation. The Deputy Director is Harlen Whitford (Sam Shepard) is concerned and wants Frost taken in (again) and interrogated (again). Some people in Langley know about the Frost data file, and that it contains details of rogue agents in multiple agencies.

Frost and Weston wind up at a soccer stadium with a huge game going on. The CIA has stashed a ‘go bag’ in the underground Metrolink station and Weston needs to get it. Frost tries to escape by claiming Weston has kidnapped him. The local police bring both of them under arrest and separate them. Frost kills his guards and escapes (again). Weston now has no chance. No chance to find Frost, and no chance to build up his name, and no chance to be promoted and get stationed in Paris (to where his girlfriend is going). He has no chance to find Frost and his secret file of bad agents and proof of some deadly transactions.

Weston is suspecting that someone higher up is feeding the thugs information of his whereabouts. He follows up on a hunch to locate Frost, and he is correct. Frost has gone into the Langa neighborhood, where he meats with an old friend, Carlos Villar (played by Ruben Blades). Frost is getting new ID papers, but the thug group has found him and starts shooting (again). Frost tries to escape, and he runs into Weston (who had followed his hunch). They meet up and Weston saves him, so they take off to another safe house out on a ranch. The ‘housekeeper’ claims that he does not know that the ‘package’ (Tobin Frost) was going to be coming in. Weston is suspicious that the Keeper might be part of the wide-ranging conspiracy of rogue agents from multiple agencies from different countries.

There are more fights and firefights, more mayhem and madness, more shooting and killing. The entire cast is pretty much beat up and/or shot up. The winner is not the ‘last man standing’; it is more like the last man ‘crawling’. All of the chaos is due to the secret file, and Tobin Frost finally gives it to Matt Weston for safekeeping. He knows that Weston has seen the rogue agents from MI-6, the German BND, and the Israeli Mossad (and you thought the Middle-Eastern looking guys were Arabic).

Ryan Reynolds does a fine job as the rookie agent operative who has never been out in the field. Denzel Washington plays a great character as the ‘best of the best’ agent who has gone dark and is not accountable to anyone anymore. He comes across as a calm personality, without betraying the inner vicious nature that he can unleash when he is trapped. Brendon Gleeson is OK as the gruff boss that might have some hidden agendas.
Vera Famiga does not have much screen time and cannot do much for a role that does not have much going for it. Sam Shepard does what he needs to do in a one-note role.

One other thing about this movie (and quite a few movies that come from Hollywood):

The main thing that it is trying to get across is that U.S. government cannot (and also all the other countries) be trusted. There are rogue factions in the CIA that combine with other rogue agents from other countries. They illegally join up in some conspiracies that will harm other countries or will harm individual citizens. And they all just can’t wait for an opportunity for doing a little bit of waterboarding.