There is also the strange problem that both main actors both mumble and speak rapidly a lot, perhaps to emphasise the realism of their scenario, but it is often hard to know what they are saying. His transformation toward the end as he learns more about the agency he once blindly served (and inevitably comes to empathise more with Frost) never feels earned, maybe because we've spent too much time watching him in car chases as opposed to really sitting down to talk to Frost. Yet when action is required Weston, shifts into high gear easily, besting opponents in fights and improvising in high speed car chases. Reynolds fares even less well, partly due to the fact that his character's appeal is supposed to rest on his rookie - and therefore vulnerable - status as compared to Frost. The role of Frost, enigmatic, dangerous, with added unfathomable moral compass, is something Washington excels at and can do in his sleep, but he's played that card perhaps too many times for it to seem fresh. If Weston can avoid being killed by the wily Frost, who slips in and out of his grasp in a wild chase across South Africa, he might live long enough to discover just how in over his head he is. But when the assassins mysteriously discover the safe house's location and kill everyone inside, Western has to flee with the highly dangerous Frost, who gradually reveals what is was that makes him such a target, and why he betrayed the Agency. Theoretically all Weston has to do is sit back and let the CIA special ops team who arrive do their job of interrogating Frost. Wanting to debrief Frost quickly, CIA HQ has Frost brought to Weston's safe house. What is on it remains unclear, but it is worth enough to get him tailed by mysterious assassins, which forces Frost to turn himself in to the nearby US consulate. An earlier sequence shows Frost acquiring a data chip from an ageing MI6 agent in Johannesburg. Things change however when Tobin Frost, a notorious rogue agent wanted for selling state secrets, suddenly crosses his path. As the film quickly makes clear, he's bummed out at having been given this dull posting, and having to lie to his local girlfriend about his real work. Safe House sees low level CIA agent Matt Weston stuck in a dead end job manning a CIA safe house in Cape Town. Sadly, director Daniel Espinosa doesn't bring the key elements that those franchises possess in spades to the table - interesting and charismatic characters, twists that keep the proceedings feeling fresh, and intensely exciting, coherent action sequences that use the locations rather than just have them feature as cute backdrops. Meanwhile, the unconventional locale for this spy adventure, feels like an attempt to replicate the exotic globetrotting thrills of the Bourne and Bond franchises. When you come across a CIA thriller featuring Ryan Reynolds as a rookie downtrodden CIA operative and Denzel Washington as a veteran rogue agent, set in the unusual location of Cape Town, South Africa, its hard not to feel that the combo of rookie pup and corrupted (but how corrupt?) veteran is an attempt to trade on warmer memories of cop thriller Training Day (which starred Washington and bagged him an Oscar for best actor).
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