SAFE HOUSE: A Throwaway Thriller Not Even Worth The Price Of A Matinee

SAFE HOUSE (Dir. Daniel Espinosa, 2012)

Although he’s been making movies since the early ‘90s, it still feels like Ryan Reynolds is the new kid on the block. Especially here as a frantic rookie who is paired with the stoical pro Denzel Washington in this incredibly forgetful formulaic film.

The formula can be traced back to TRAINING DAY, and was recently retreaded in UNSTOPPABLE: the cool-as-ice Washington schools a wet-behind-the-ears white pretty boy through unfolding chaos.

This time, Washington is a CIA agent gone rogue sporting teased out hair and a goatee who is apprehended and placed in a safe house in Africa under Reynolds’ supervision. Washington is water boarded by CIA operatives (including Robert Patrick), but he withstands the torture, not giving up the secret file they’re after. Yep, that’s the film’s MacGuffin – a data file from an MI6 officialcontaining names of all the rogue agents in the world, that, of course, everybody is after.

So here we go with another ‘guess who’s the mole’ scenario, and only if you turn your brain completely off will you not figure it out.



After Washington escapes, there’s a scene in which he shaves and cuts his hair then flashes his trademark grin for the first time in the film. It’s such a self conscious movie star moment that I couldn’t help laughing.



However, the rest of the film rarely amuses. It’s a grainy mess of poorly-shot and horribly edited fight scenes and chases with some of the shakiest shaky-cam action I’ve ever seen.



Not only are Reynolds and Washington wasted in all this numbing noise, so are Brendan Gleason (doing a coarse but convincing American accent), Vera Farmiga (in a control-room role much like her character’s in SOURCE CODE), and Sam Shepherd as a stern CIA director – a part he could play in his sleep.



A throwaway thriller that’s not even worth the price of a matinee (or a second run bargain price for that matter), SAFE HOUSE is aptly named because it’s a sad shelter in which a couple of fine actors play it safe and take no chances with their careers.

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SOURCE CODE Is Fun, But Has A Major Glitch

SOURCE CODE (Dir. Duncan Jones, 2011)

So Jake Gyllenhaall is jarred into consciousness on a Chicago commuter train sitting across from Michelle Monaghan who’s in mid conversation mode.

She thinks he’s somebody else, and from his reflection in the train’s restroom mirror – he is somebody else.

While still scrambling to figure out what’s going on, a massive explosion destroys the train and kills him, her, and hundreds of people. Then Gyllenhaall wakes up again, but this time in a dark chamber in some sort of laboratory with Vera Farmiga in a dark blue military suit on a video monitor.

Farmiga explains to Gylennhaall that he is on a mission to inhabit a specific passenger’s mind the last 8 minutes before the train is blown up in order to identify the bomber and thwart future attacks.

Therefore Gyllenhaall is thrust into the same scene again multiple times, GROUNDHOG DAY style.

This is a juicy premise that comes equipped with some tasty twists. Gyllenhaall, who is revealed to be a army helicopter pilot, is a smart guy so it’s fun to watch him try to figure out the suspects and manipulate the situation, all the while flirting with the playful Monaghan.

As Farmiga’s superior, a stodgy Jeffrey Wright is sternly looking over her shoulder spouting out the necessary exposition about the source code that they are utilizing: “It’s not time travel; it’s time reassignment.”

As the second film of director Duncan Jones (whose first movie MOON is seriously worth checking out), SOURCE CODE is stylishly paced, elaborately assembled, and is filled with stunning visuals, but it has one fatal flaw that is really difficult for me to wrap my brain around.

Thing is, to reveal that flaw would be committing a major Spoiler! crime, so I’ll just say that this film is close to 80 maybe 85% of a superb surreal action thriller.

It's one of Gyllenhaall's most appealing performances displaying the right amount of tension and humility. By this point he doesn't have to prove that he can carry a movie, but it's still cool seeing him again give it the "old college try."

Farmiga shows that even with her lips prudishly pursed, wearing a drab uniform, and with her hair pulled back into a bun is still collassally cute. Her performance ain't bad either - she conveys a restrained sense of urgency throughout.

Monaghan doesn't have much of a character despite being the love interest, but she makes the most of it. Wright as the handicapped "source code" scientist, is all sinister in his cold calculations in a predictable "heavy" manner, but although he's mainly a device - he's not a narrative problem like the one that keeps me from being 100% on board with this movie.

So much of this film is so good that I definitely recommend it, but that one particular plot hole (that I'm dying to go off on, again - Spoiler! city) just keeps bugging me.

I know I over-think these things, and that most folks will see it as a slick serviceable popcorn picture and go about their day, but SOURCE CODE is so close to absolute brilliance in its meticulousness that I can't help but zeroing in the one element that almost derails the entire endeavor.

However, maybe getting wrapped up in that one glitch in the system is just as much fun as getting wrapped up in the rest of it.

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UP IN THE AIR: The Film Babble Blog Review

UP IN THE AIR (Dir. Jason Reitman, 2009)

George Clooney's third film of the last quarter of 2009 has "the last movie star" (Time Magazine's words - not mine) in a much more recognizable role than his last 2 efforts. It's not just because he's not a mustached military man or an animated fox, it's that he has a more recognizable character arc: slick professional who believes he has all the answers glides through life until realizing that there's emptiness to it all which he desperately and clumsily tries to remedy.

This is also the character arc of director Jason Reitman's first film THANK YOU FOR SMOKING, which UP IN THE AIR closely resembles at times especially in its opening introductory montage. Clooney's voice-over narration, accompanying aerial shots of many American cities, tells us that he is a corporate downsizer.





Clooney flies all over the country to conduct formal sit-downs with employees to tell them that they are being laid off. He is very good at his job and prefers the 322 days of the year that he is on the road to the 43 that he is home in his sterile white walled rental unit of an apartment in Omaha.

Clooney's frequent flyer lifestyle is threatened when his boss (a lightly bearded slightly jaded Jason Bateman) brings in a young consultant (Anna Kendrick) who has plans to replace the face-to-face meetings with video conferencing. Bateman sends Kendrick on the road with Clooney so she can be shown the ropes.





Clooney hopes this will show her the flaws in what he believes to be a flawed inhuman media method, but you just know that both will be taught essential life lessons by one another.





In a hotel bar meet-cute earlier, Clooney literally charms the pants off fellow frequent flyer Vera Farmiga. She nicely compliments his no-strings-attached philosophy and provides a counter balance to Kendrick's wet behind the ears romantic idealism.





After Kendrick's boyfriend back home dumps her by way of a text message, Clooney can't help but to make a wise-crack: "That's kind of like firing people over the internet." Farmiga offers, with much more sensitivity, some solid advice about how it won't feel like settling by the time somebody is right for her.

These relationship insights blend into the travelogue mosaic of cards being swiped, more aerial shots, and the many firings, yet we just know that they form the crucial crux at hand. 





For example Clooney has the annoying task of taking along a cardboard cutout of his sister (Melanie Lynskey) with her fiancée (Danny McBride) to be photographed at famous landmarks for a wedding collage - this draws our attention to his ostensible freedom in contrast to his sibling's ostensible stability with neither coming out on top.





The first half of UP IN THE AIR is breezy and amusing, but the second half descends into mawkish sentimentality with soul searching acoustic balladry in the background broadcasting what we're supposed to be feeling. Clooney's charisma is so pleasantly palpable that he makes the film appear better than it is while we're watching it, yet its superficial effect evaporates once we leave the theater.





Still, most audiences are sure to find this film a likable lark. It's well made and has a shiny gloss to it that often outshines its predictability. It also benefits from not having a neatly tied up conclusion - sometimes it's best to leave some things right where the title says they should be.

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