Denzel Washington is perhaps the coolest actor around today.  I don’t know if there’s an actor who can convince you to either love or hate him as well as Denzel can.  In Safe House, Denzel delivers one of his best performances and to my surprise so does Ryan Reynolds.  They both play off of each other extremely well in the movie.  Ryan Reynolds is far removed from being just the “pretty boy” in Hollywood.  He kicks ass in the role of Matt Weston … much ass indeed.  It just points to the ability of Denzel to transform his counterparts.  What he did for Ethan Hawke in Training Day, he does the same for Reyolds.  He brought out the best I’ve seen in Reynolds.

Denzel plays Tobin Frost, an ex-CIA agent who has been rogue for a number of years and has been selling information across the world for money.  He’s calculating with his every move and he moves with serious intent.  If you’re in Tobin’s way, then good luck because that’s not a good place to be.  Reynolds’ Weston is essentially a low level CIA operative looking for his big break to be promoted to actual field work.  That entry into field work ends up being Tobin Frost.

Safe House takes place in Cape Town, South Africa which ends up being the perfect environment to deliver all the action in the movie.  And the action starts almost immediately.  As soon as the first encounter between Tobin and Weston occurs, it’s nonstop action from there.  The car chases are wild and the fight scenes are so in your face that you almost feel like throwing a punch yourself.  One of my favorite scenes is when Tobin just walks across a hallway as if nothing is going on and shoots this guy.  It was like I’m just going to walk to the other side as if there isn’t a firefight going on, surprise you with my cool and kill you.

I won’t give away too much of the plot because you’re better off enjoying it for yourself.  Safe House delivered on all the action and classic Denzel that I expected.  He’s almost flawless in his performance of Tobin Frost.  If you’ve played the online game, then you simply have to complete the experience and see the movie.

Director: Daniel Espinosa
Producer: Scott Stuber
Distributed by: Universal Studios

4 out of 5 stars