Movie Review Monday: Safe House: Safe as Houses?

Hello Cadets! Welcome to Movie Review Monday! Let’s get this new schedule started with my review of Safe House.

First I would like to start this out with the fact that I am not a huge Denzel Washington fan. I like the concept of his movies but at times they are formulaic and, dare I say, predictable because they all seem to attempt to be too unpredictable. That being said the big selling point is that I like espionage films and I love Brendan Gleeson so I gave it a shot, and here are the results.

The Good:

The story, while still following that aforementioned formula, did have quite a few turns to the point, you knew the twist was there but it was hard to figure out where the audience was being led. I enjoyed the action scenes and the breaks in between where the story took over again. No action scene was necessarily unnecessary and the choreography was, for the most part, timed well. A big shout out to the people who put the car chases together, they were almost beautiful in their complex simplicity. The ending was slightly predictable in the sense you could figure out the outcome, it was the how and why that kept you guessing until the reveal.

The actors were spot on, the emotion was there, pain where necessary, almost to a point where it didn't always feel like it was just acting. Ryan Reynolds showed a lot of depth in his performance and for that I will forgive him for Green Lantern (just kidding, I thought it was funny). Denzel played a cool and calm antagonist, a smooth talker and almost had you rooting for him even though you know he's the bad guy.

The Bad:

I know it is a popular method but there really is such thing as too much camera shake. The fights, as I said, were mostly well timed, and this is where that statement is elaborated on. The camera shook as if the cameraman was holding it while participating in the fight, not to mention the plethora of cuts thrown in randomly. It’s hard to follow when the scene is shown for two seconds from angle 1 then cuts to a second of angle 2 then enter and high-angled slow-mo shot. I honestly just assume the fighting was so badly executed that they use that style to cover the gaps, punches thrown too slow, et cetera, ad nauseum. That was honestly my only gripe, but then again not everyone can pull of the Bahnhof Rumble scene in Hanna (If you don’t know what I’m talking about you are missing out).

Overall this movie was amazing and I would definitely watch it again. The story was riveting and the acting was fantastic, and as far as I’ve researched, this is not a remake! If I had to give it a rating this movie gets an A- (could have been an A+ if it wasn’t for the crazy camera/fight scene editing).

I hope you like the first official Movie Review Monday. You can check out the latest updates and upcoming events at War Kitten Revue on facebook or follow me on twitter @WarKittenRevue. This is War Kitten signing off and asking Nintendo fans to forgive Michael Bay. You all thought it was awesome when everything exploded in Goldeneye 64 including wooden crates, he just took it to a new level. #GoldeneyeComplex