Review of Safe House (2012) by Keep_Yr_Bias — 10 Feb 2012

First things first.... this is an action movie. Nothing more, nothing less. I was amazed at the hypocracy of just about every critic who reviewed this movie (the first critics reviews I read were from James Berardinelli, Todd Mcarthy, and Justin Chang).

Those 3 critics (among others) praised the most recent Mission Impossible movie, when that movie was similar to this one. Similar in the sense that Mission Impossible had a crap story (like Safe House) and was all about the action.

I can't understand why they loved that movie, but didn't like Safe House. Safe House's action is completely believeable, and is very intense. There are 6 legitimate action scenes, all of which are gritty and suspenseful, which is much more than I can say for that crap movie Mission Impossible.

Safe House is meant to be an action movie. That was clearly the goal of the director for this movie, and they pull that aspect off beautifully. Critiquing a pure action movie for a poor story is fine, but it's pretty much the same thing as knocking a drama for not being funny enough.

Go see Safe House for the action, and if that's what you're expecting you won't be disappointed. Denzel hasn't kicked this much a$$ since Training Day. His character may not be as interesting as it could have been (same for Ryan Reynolds), but they have a solid chemistry together.

The story is pretty average at best, and the writing/acting is average as well, but I have to give this movie a lot of credit. Action movies RARELY have good stories or character development, and Safe House is no exception.

Still, Safe House's action is relentless and exhausting. It was definitely worth my time and money to turn off my brain a little to enjoy it. To hell with the hypocritical critics.