July 02, 2012

Safe House

Safe House was a 2012 action movie starring Ryan Reynolds and Denzel Wahington. It was directed by Daniel Espinosa and the screenplay was written by David Guggenheim. Also part of the cast were Brendan Gleeson, Vera Farmiga, Robert Patrick, Nora Arnezeder, Sam Shepard, Ruben Blades, Fares Fares, Joel Kinnaman, and many more. Each and every member of the cast did exceptionally well and helped the movie become what it was. All of them were really great.

I was actually excited about this one. I'm not a big fan of Denzel Washington only because I haven't seen a lot of his movies. From what I know though, like a snippet of his movie John Q (not sue of the title) he's really good. Ryan Reynolds is another story. I've seen quite a number of Ryan Reynolds movies, and I've practically enjoyed every single one of them. I don't even care if it's comedy or action or whatever, I look forward to Ryan Reynolds movies. Finding out about the movie was exciting because it's an action movie with both actors, and immediately I thought it's going to be great.

There were two things to like about the movie: Ryan Reynolds and Denzel Washington. Both really gave strong performances. Both were equally amazing at portraying their characters. There's this certain something, a drive, behind these actors that made the movie worthwhile. There was an intensity between these two that created the appropriate atmosphere for the movie, tensed but at the same time, relaxed. I'd include Robert Patrick but he only had a minor role, and a short screen time.

The story seemed a little underdeveloped for me. While it did the job of seeing a movie from beginning to end, I thought a lot of things could have been improved on. I felt like the idea behind it had a lot more potential than what it showed. I'm not saying it was bad. It really wasn't. But I thought they could have maximized it a bit more, stretched those creative juices just a tiny bit more. With an idea like this, which is already not uncommon to begin with, they could played around the things that would set this movie apart more. For example, the safe house(s) just became a location more than an element of the movie. Maybe that's just me. But yeah, it was still pretty good, and still an enjoyable movie.

I did enjoy the action scenes though it was a bit difficult to follow. It was constantly zooming in and out, focusing on different people that sometimes it got confusing who's shooting who. That was my only problem with it. Other than that I thoroughly enjoyed watching Reynolds and Washington battle it out with practically people from different sides. That part of the movie was exciting and thrilling.

I think, as always, having expectations hurt me a bit. While I did enjoy watching the movie, I felt a little let down because I was expecting a lot more. I kept waiting for things to really pick up but it never did. I hoped for a grand finale, and that also didn't happen. I honestly think that if I didn't have any preconceived thoughts, or any expectations, I would have liked it a lot more. It was just difficult not to have any because people were talking about it, it was an unexpected tandem (at least for me), and it was just present for me. However, even as I say this, I still stand by the fact that I still liked the movie. I enjoyed watching it, mostly because of this incredible partnership of Reynolds and Washington, and the rest of the cast. It was still a good film, and I say this despite everything I said before.

No comments:

Post a Comment