Safe House (2012) Review

Matt Weston is a young CIA agent who is tasked with looking after fugitive Tobin Frost in a safe house. But everything doesn’t go to plan when the house is attacked and they end up on the run together.

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Tobin Frost is the CIA’s most wanted rogue agent in South Africa. When he is taken to the safe house, mercenaries interrupt the interrogation and he ends up on the run with Weston until they can find another safe house to stay in. But after the breach who can they actually trust. It pushes Weston to the limit as he is not really sure what to do next considering his training has not really covered this type of thing. Along with Frost getting in his head considering he used to work for the CIA he knows all the tricks and next moves they will play.

It was obvious it was going to have plenty of twists and turns but never really clear about which direction that was actually going in. A film that really does keep you guessing and wondering who the good and bad guys really are, and that makes it very entertaining to watch from start to finish.

Some of the moments are a little bit easy to work out, with who seem to be corrupting things within the CIA from the US as we are often shown back to them. Sometimes with films like this I wish they went for the least obvious character as it always seems easy to work out who has been causing problems.

Denzel Washington really is fantastic in any role and this one is no different, he works very well with Ryan Reynolds and both men are impressive together. Bouncing off one another and bringing out very good performances. When you then get to throw in supporting cast of Vera Farmiga, Brendan Gleeson and Sam Shepard you know it is going to be a well acted film.

In terms of action films I wouldn’t really throw this out as one of the best, but it does have some decent moments. Good performances aren’t enough to save a pretty average story with easy to guess twists which is a little bit of a shame really. It was also one of those films that I couldn’t actually remember if I had already seen or not. Which I suppose isn’t the best thing to say having them watched it again, maybe it was one I started but never actually finished? I guess that doesn’t matter now as writing this review confirms that I have definitely watched it all the way through now and this will help document that fact forever!