Secrets and spies get a cynical outing in Safe House

SAFE House is a Hollywood action thriller shot mainly in South Africa and directed by Swedish filmmaker Daniel Espinosa.

Safe House

SAFE House is a Hollywood action thriller shot mainly in South Africa and directed by Swedish filmmaker Daniel Espinosa. I recommend it as an excellent companion piece for J. Edgar: both films shed light on the workings of US security agencies.

In Safe House, Denzel Washington plays the fictional Tobin Frost, the most dangerous American traitor of the 21st century, a highly placed intelligence officer who has ditched the CIA to sell classified information to the highest bidder (it's hard to say who is treated more sympathetically; Frost the traitor or J. Edgar the patriotic law-enforcer).

But like any character Washington plays, we can't help liking him. The only time I saw Washington play an all-out bad guy he was a drug dealer up against Russell Crowe in American Gangster. At the start of Safe House he takes delivery of a file of secrets from the British spy agency MI6. Before he can dispose of it he's captured by the CIA, taken to a safe house in Cape Town and placed in the protective custody of inexperienced CIA recruit Matt Weston (Ryan Reynolds).

Matt has spent the past several months minding the safe house, sitting around with nothing much to do and longing for the kind of violent action that Espinosa delivers in generous measure. One of the lessons of Safe House is that even the best safe house is never as safe as it seems. When the house is attacked by armed mercenaries Frost escapes with Matt in pursuit. The chase leads to a couple of fine action sequences, including one at a football stadium, and eventually to another safe house no safer than the first.

The screenplay (by David Guggenheim) keeps us guessing for most of the film, if only by keeping us mildly confused. The exact time of day is shown at regular intervals on screen, a device often used in films to suggest realism and authenticity. Thus, when the mayhem kicks off at "1.53pm, Thursday", and at least two public assassinations occur in the first couple of minutes, I wondered why it was that by "8.17am, Friday" we are caught up in a wild car chase which may or may not be the same car chase, with the same revving engines and squealing brakes, that we first witnessed, according to my notes, at "5.37am".

This being a cynical contemporary thriller, it goes without saying that the higher-ups at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, are no more to be trusted than the lower-order operatives in Cape Town, or even the spies and criminals on the other side. Even so, I liked Vera Farmiga's CIA branch chief, who is convinced that Matt, like Frost, has turned traitor. There's a distressing scene when Frost is water-boarded by his CIA interrogators, and Matt, looking on, rather naively inquires, "Is this legal?"

That this form of torture has been widely used by the US is not now disputed, but it is shocking to see it practised so graphically in Safe House as if it were perfectly routine. It gives the film an odd touch of daring. It is also another reason for feeling sorry for America's most dangerous traitor.

J. Edgar Hoover would have drawn the line at this, surely.

Safe House (M)
3 stars
National release