Movie Review: Safe House

“Easy Money.” That’s the title of a Swedish bestseller written by Jens Lapidus. The movie was turned into a Swedish blockbuster movie in 2010, directed by Daniel Espinosa. The movie was a huge success, got good reviews -- and I guess I was one of the very few who really hated the damn movie. I thought it was awful. It starred Swedish actor Joel Kinnaman (“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” “The Darkest Hour,” TV show “The Killing”), who I think is a very bad and annoying actor, and whenever there was action, it was filmed using hand-held shaky-cams, meaning you really can’t see what happens. Apparently, the action sequences were directed by successful Swedish director Josef Fares -- who’s brother Fares Fares acted in the movie.

For some reason Hollywood liked what they saw, and “Easy Money” became Espinosa’s ticket to big budget Hollywood epics. While other directors from the Nordic countries started their American careers making low-budget fare, like Renny Harlin, who made “Prison” and “A Nightmare on Elm Street 4” before “Die Hard 2,” Espinosa got to make “Safe House,” a big, expensive action thriller starring Denzel Washington, Ryan Reynolds, Sam Shepard, Brendan Gleeson, Vera Farmiga and Robert Patrick. The movie received a red carpet gala screening in the U.S. and it’s considered one of the big ones of 2012, Universal have high hopes about this one.

The movie started, and it didn’t take long before I thought “Here we go again …” -- this felt like a movie I’ve seen several times before. This is a standard story, set in South Africa for a change. Denzel Washington is a bad guy who’s gotten hold of a micro chip with very sensitive data; highly confidential information on people in the C.I.A., the M.I.6 and so on -- material that might create another Wikileaks style scandal. Washington injects the chip into his body, but is arrested and taken to a so-called safe house. Reynolds is a young C.I.A. agent working there, and when a bunch of really, really nasty bad guys -- led by Fares Fares -- attacks and kills everybody in the safe house, Reynolds manages to escape and brings Washington with him. And then Washington escapes from Reynolds. The violent bad guys are chasing Reynolds and Washington, Reynolds is chasing Washington, the C.I.A. try to locate Washington, and one of the good guys is apparently corrupt. And to make matters worse, Reynolds hasn’t told his French girlfriend that he’s working for the American government!

Somebody, please ban the use of hand-held cameras! Okay, maybe they shouldn’t ban them, but please prevent people from shaking the damn cameras! What’s the point staging huge action set pieces when you can’t see what the hell is going on? Besides the damn shaky-cam, “Safe House” is grainy as hell. There’s a big, probably very impressive car chase here; lots of cars are demolished -- but all we see are close-ups of doors, steering wheels, faces, and so on. And during a couple of the fights, I was actually squinting. The grainy, shaky images, the corroded colors, the super rapid editing hurt my eyes. Also, it’s sometimes hard to tell who’s fighting who and who gets killed.

“Safe House” is a decent thriller. At least, it could be a pretty good thriller, despite the fact that it’s very unoriginal. It's pretty violent and bloody, but for some reason, the characters don't swear. Weird. You never know what to expect from Denzel Washington, but he’s usually pretty good when he’s playing a bad guy or a bad ass, like in this movie. Ryan Reynolds is a very likable actor and his character is also likable and rather believable. The other actors are of course also very good, Fares Fares makes for a fun, unstoppable Terminator like baddie. But then Joel Kinnaman suddenly appears, and I just can’t stand the guy. Fortunately, he has a rather small part -- and he looks like he’s arrived from the set of “Deliverance.”

Yeah, I know, the movie’s style is supposed to make this story gritty and realistic, to give us an impression of actually being there. But come on, thrillers back in the 1970s were also gritty -- even grittier -- without shaking the camera. Just look at the good old Bronson movies. I must say I found the look and style of “Safe House” so annoying I was close to rating it two out of five. But that wouldn’t be fair.

Oh, and the dirty C.I.A. agent is exactly the one you think it is. No surprises there.

“Safe House” opens in the U.S. on Feb. 10, in Sweden on Feb. 15 and in the UK on Feb. 24.

Images copyright © UIP Sweden

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