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There sure have been a lot of movies about spies lately. So, here's another. A rogue CIA agent walks into a US consulate in South Africa and is taken to a local safe house for interrogation. The house is crashed and the agent in charge of the safe house escapes with the prisoner and is on the run without support while trying to protect the man that is infamous for his "spy" abilities. It all seems fairly standard, and in many ways, it is. Lots of gunplay, lots of chases by car and on foot and over rooftops, etc. What I felt made this movie different from the biggies like the Bourne series, is the humanity of the two main characters involved. While they are highly effective at what they do, whether it's firing guns or hand-to-hand combat or light investigative work, they don't feel like unstoppable killing machines. They're frustrated and scared and tired and afraid for those they care about. Along with that, the acting was impressive as well. Not so much from Denzel Washington, we know he can act and he was largely playing a character we all know well, the older, jaded and yet, sagely Yoda-like badass. Ryan Reynolds, though, was quite satisfying as an under-utilized field agent wannabe who suddenly gets thrust into a world-wide operation that threatens not only his only life, but the life of his girlfriend and his own moral integrity. He also didn't crack a single joke through the entire movie, so it wasn't as if he could fall back on his comedic skills. This was all intensity and drama and badassery and he was damned impressive. In a lot of ways, I'd say Safe House was a lot like a male version of Haywire, except I actually really liked Safe House.

4/5