safe house 2012 movie reviews

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Trouble logging in?

By continuing, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes.

Email not verified

Let's keep in touch.

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

• Upcoming Movies and TV shows
• Rotten Tomatoes Podcast
• Media News + More

By clicking "Sign Me Up," you are agreeing to receive occasional emails and communications from Fandango Media (Fandango, Vudu, and Rotten Tomatoes) and consenting to Fandango's Privacy Policy and Terms and Policies . Please allow 10 business days for your account to reflect your preferences.

OK, got it!

• About Rotten Tomatoes®
• Login/signup

Movies in theaters

• Opening This Week
• Top Box Office
• Coming Soon to Theaters
• Certified Fresh Movies

Movies at Home

• Fandango at Home
• Prime Video
• Most Popular Streaming Movies
• What to Watch New

Certified fresh picks

• 83% Speak No Evil Link to Speak No Evil
• 77% Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Link to Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
• 96% Rebel Ridge Link to Rebel Ridge

New TV Tonight

• 90% The Penguin: Season 1
• 90% High Potential: Season 1
• 86% American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez: Season 1
• 100% Tulsa King: Season 2
• 67% A Very Royal Scandal: Season 1
• 29% Emmys: Season 76
• 40% Frasier: Season 2
• -- Agatha All Along: Season 1
• -- Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story: Season 2
• -- Twilight of the Gods: Season 1

Most Popular TV on RT

• 63% The Perfect Couple: Season 1
• 74% Kaos: Season 1
• 99% Shōgun: Season 1
• 67% The Old Man: Season 2
• 84% The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: Season 2
• 100% Slow Horses: Season 4
• Best TV Shows
• Most Popular TV

Certified fresh pick

• 95% Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist: Season 1 Link to Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist: Season 1
• All-Time Lists
• Binge Guide
• Comics on TV
• Five Favorite Films
• Video Interviews
• Weekend Box Office
• Weekly Ketchup
• What to Watch

47 Best Italian Horror Movies of All Time

30 Most Popular Movies Right Now: What to Watch In Theaters and Streaming

What to Watch: In Theaters and On Streaming

Awards Tour

‘Seen on the Screen’ Podcast: A Celebration of Universal Stories 

The Fight Night Cast on Trolling Each Other on Set

• Trending on RT
• Hispanic Heritage Month
• Spanish-Language Movies
• Re-Release Calendar

Safe House Reviews

Although occasionally exciting, there’s a pointed lack of gamesmanship in the events for a yarn involving spies, coupled with a lackluster quality that fails to leave an impression.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Feb 23, 2023

I had a great time with “Safe House”, and I don’t penalize it for aiming at a specific mark and hitting it.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 25, 2022

Why do scripters even try to hide the identity of the villain until the end? Given the obviousness in these films, they might as well include a character named Professor Plum, usually found brandishing a lead pipe in the conservatory, and be done with it.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 13, 2021

As for the action and choreographed violence, perhaps the number two reason for purchasing a ticket this weekend, again Safe House delivers adequately.

Full Review | Apr 23, 2021

The South African location, Denzel Washington's duplicitous dialogue, and the intense car chases help to coax viewers into forgetting about the humdrum plot.

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Dec 2, 2020

Nothing you haven't seen before, "Safe House" is lightning-fast, and full of shootouts, brutal fistfights, and chase scenes.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Jul 11, 2020

The end product resembles a Catherine wheel: a loud, bright firework that goes nowhere, spinning in circles until long after everyone stopped caring.

Full Review | Feb 14, 2020

Probably so, it was fun and does what it does pretty well. Don't go in looking for a transcendent experience of film cause that's not what it is supposed to do.

Full Review | Original Score: C+ | Jan 11, 2020

Reynolds is the star of the film, but because he's the junior actor, playing the rookie character, he's given even less to work with. Racing from pillar to post, he just keeps his head down...

Full Review | Jul 29, 2019

Plays it safe at every turn, and the result is a film that just can't compete with its own clear influences.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 8, 2019

While blood spills messily, the conspiracy is unwrapped neatly and nothing is left to chance.

Full Review | Jan 26, 2019

This is a film filled with lines like, "Everyone betrays everyone." But the banality of those words almost disappears when Denzel Washington utters them.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Jan 4, 2019

Spends most of its 117-minute running time much like its central characters -- tearing madly around, making a lot of noise and not really getting very far.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Dec 13, 2018

[It's] undeniably engaging and extremely well acted.

Full Review | Nov 10, 2018

Reynolds is great, too, but the film truly belongs to Washington as the gruff, clever bad guy you'll end up rooting for.

Full Review | Nov 21, 2017

[Daniel] Espinosa thrillingly weaves impossible situation into impossible situation, maneuvering his players like a chess game on steroids to an ending that should be satisfying to all. He's a master and we're sure to hear more from him.

Full Review | Sep 18, 2017

Though it's not a premise we haven't seen played out before on the silver screen, Safe House is a movie that sucks you in, guts you, and spits you out at the end.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Sep 8, 2017

Safe House wasn't bad, it just wasn't new, and if a movie is involving rogue agents, it needs to meet its characterization with a plot that keeps us guessing.

Full Review | Original Score: C+ | Aug 21, 2017

[Safe House] is utterly predictable stuff, in case you haven't already figured that out by now.

Full Review | Aug 14, 2017

Everybody fights and everybody lies in a thriller that tries to glamorize spies while demonizing their profession.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Dec 30, 2012

• Skip to main content
• Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

A Spy On The Run, But Playing It Too 'Safe'

Ian Buckwalter

Cold and Calculating: Tobin Frost (Denzel Washington), a deadly CIA operative turned one-man army, placidly waits for trouble to come to him in Safe House . Universal Pictures hide caption

Cold and Calculating: Tobin Frost (Denzel Washington), a deadly CIA operative turned one-man army, placidly waits for trouble to come to him in Safe House .

• Director: Daniel Espinosa
• Genre: Action, Thriller
• Running Time: 115 minutes

Rated R for strong violence throughout and some language

With: Denzel Washington, Ryan Reynolds, Vera Farmiga, Brendan Gleeson, Sam Shepard

Watch Clips

'Houseguest'

Credit: Universal Pictures

'Frost Makes His Move'

'My Real Job'

It was only a matter of time before someone made a Tony Scott movie without Tony Scott.

The director's frequent collaborations with Denzel Washington are guilty-pleasure entertainments — particularly the dark exploitation-lite of 2004's Man on Fire -- but they're mostly built on a familiar template. Washington's always playing a cool-under-pressure character who's asked to go above and beyond with life and death on the line, and the camera's always following the action with grainy photography and claustrophobically jittery close-ups. It's not a difficult manual to decipher — and with Safe House , Swedish director Daniel Espinosa follows the Scott-Washington playbook with a tedious fidelity.

As in Man on Fire , Washington plays a former CIA operative who's long since left the agency. But instead of the bitter drunk of that film, Safe House 's Tobin Frost is a man still in top form, both physically and in his ability to psychologically manipulate those around him. Espinosa puts his skills on display in a lengthy opening action sequence in which he is pursued around Cape Town, South Africa, by a team of mercenaries.

Frost, who's been making his living off the grid as a spy-for-hire since going AWOL from the CIA, has just scored a trove of documents detailing intelligence secrets and government scandals from around the world when the chase begins; the director choreographs the sequence to neatly introduce Frost's skills, then caps it by quite literally introducing the character: He ducks into the American consulate, announcing that "My name is Tobin Frost."

The CIA pulls him out of the consulate, taking him for questioning to a safe house watched over by Matt Weston (Ryan Reynolds), a young field agent paying his dues in this dull assignment and hoping for bigger and better things. The opportunity to prove his mettle arrives with the extraction team and their fugitive, who has been brought here for some "enhanced interrogation."

He's so cool under pressure (Frosty, get it?) that he lectures the team on the insufficient thread count of the towels they're about to use to waterboard him. Weston, acting as audience proxy, is appropriately horrified at the torture he's witnessing, but it's cut short when the safe house turns out to be not so safe. He and Frost escape and head out on the lam together.

Inexperienced field agent Matt Weston (Ryan Reynolds) prepares to fend off an attack on his CIA safe house in Cape Town, South Africa. Universal Pictures hide caption

Espinosa is perfectly capable, and the action packs plenty of excitement, even if the direction lacks the visual innovation that might provide unexpected jolts. Washington and Reynolds are excellent together, in much the same vein as Washington and Ethan Hawke in Training Day or Washington and Chris Pine in Unstoppable (the latter another Scott-Washington picture). Sensing the pattern?

He's done the wise mentor to the hot-headed but ambitious youth thing before, but Washington's magnetic intensity and unassailably cool air have always set him apart from most other action stars, and he's as impossible to dislike here as ever. Reynolds, meanwhile, makes this one of those periodic performances that reminds us he's capable of being an excellent actor; if only he'd quit making such awful role choices.

But their performances can't save Safe House from its boilerplate-thriller bones. There's plenty of inexplicably poor decision-making on the part of the characters just to move the plot forward. And the worst is writer David Guggenheim's insistence on a cheap bait-and-switch so blatantly obvious that the second half of the film becomes a tedious wait for a plot twist everyone will have seen coming half an hour out.

In telegraphing every move, and by painting so rigorously by the numbers, the film takes no risks at all. Which I suppose makes Safe House true to its title — but safety doesn't exactly put the thrills in a thriller.

Advertisement

Supported by

Movie Review

Smoldering Superagent Runs...and Keeps on Running

• Share full article

By Manohla Dargis

• Feb. 9, 2012

At some point in the tense, tough, visceral action movie “Safe House” a side character describes a rogue superagent played by Denzel Washington as “the black Dorian Gray.” Now that’s a movie pitch in waiting. Mr. Washington, or rather the mystery man he plays, Tobin Frost, a former operative for the C.I.A., lets out a short self-aware laugh of a man who isn’t just fielding a compliment but also owning it fully. And why not? He looks good , and he knows it.

Mr. Washington turned 57 in December, but if he’s feeling any of the aches and pains of age, it doesn’t show. “Safe House,” a “Bourne”-esque story about the bad, bad things that agents sometimes do in the name of country and company, puts Mr. Washington through his action-flick paces. He runs, he punches, he runs, he punches and occasionally discharges a gun, either coldly (it’s just business) or with the slight look of disgust of a man cleaning off the bottom of his shoe. Tobin Frost — the name smacks of airport spy fiction — isn’t really the enigma the filmmakers would like you to believe, but Mr. Washington is so good at suggesting deep reserves of cool, moody mystery and smoldering feeling that he keeps you nicely guessing.

Did or didn’t Frost betray his country is the question that the credited screenwriter David Guggenheim and Daniel Espinosa, the young, up-and-coming Swedish director, put into nimble play almost as soon as “Safe House” gets going. And, after some low-key place setting in Cape Town, where Matt Weston (Ryan Reynolds), an untested C.I.A. agent, is watching over a company safe house, the movie takes off like a shot. Frost, having just snaked his way through the city, dodging a gun-toting, shooting horde, and setting citizens scrambling every which way, has slipped into the American Embassy and, after announcing his identity, been swept away by agents to the safe house for debriefing.

Like a lot of contemporary action directors Mr. Espinosa tends to cut among several scenes, switching not simply between two scenes but also upward of four. In lesser hands this kind of editing scheme can devolve into visual and narrative chaos, as the filmmaker whiplashes from one location to another, sometimes for no apparent reason. Working with the editor Richard Pearson, whose credits include “The Bourne Supremacy,” Mr. Espinosa maintains a visually coherent, narratively rational sense of time and space no matter how fast the story shifts about, which it does with increasing speed when that same heavily armed horde that had been chasing Frost breaches the safe house, slaughtering most of the American operatives and sending Frost and Weston running.

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and  log into  your Times account, or  subscribe  for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber?  Log in .

Want all of The Times?  Subscribe .

The Definitive Voice of Entertainment News

Subscribe for full access to The Hollywood Reporter

site categories

Safe house: film review.

Swedish director Daniel Espinosa's action-thriller starring Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds is a two-hour cat-and-mouse game with a few brief breaks to catch its breath.

By Todd McCarthy

Todd McCarthy

• Share on Facebook
• Share to Flipboard
• Send an Email
• Show additional share options
• Share on LinkedIn
• Share on Pinterest
• Share on Reddit
• Share on Tumblr
• Share on Whats App
• Print the Article
• Post a Comment

Safe House Ryan Reynolds - H 2012

Essentially a two-hour chase with a few brief breaks to catch its breath, Safe House is an elemental cat-and-mouse game elaborated to the point of diminishing returns. Terse and understated, this is a spy vs. spy tale designed to minimize talk and maximize action, not at all a bad thing in movies but over-worked to near-exhaustion here. Star names of Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds will assure a robust opening for this muscular winter attraction, the stripped-down simplicity of which should play particularly well overseas.

PHOTOS: Hollywood’s 10 Highest-Grossing Actors

David Guggenheim ‘s nuts-and-bolts screenplay is mainly about one thing: A renegade CIA agent has information some of the gang back in Washington, D.C. might not want out there, so it comes down to their relentlessness versus his resourcefulness. Such a premise can be enough if the filmmaker in charge is a master of suspenseful minutia, a born storyteller capable of elaborating any small situation into a captivating tale, a wizard with images and of stretching a yarn to just before the breaking point.

Related Stories

Malcolm washington on surprising his mom with 'the piano lesson' tribute, norman spencer, david lean collaborator and 'vanishing point' producer, dies at 110.

Swedish director Daniel Espinosa ( Snabba Cash ) is not on that level–not yet, anyway–although the style he employs to follows the far-ranging action—something resembling a surveillance camera surreptitiously eavesdropping on movements and incidents not meant to be witnessed—is entirely apt for the subject at hand. Especially when the action is outdoors and on the street, the slightly stylized coverage is often managed from above, where a permanent camera might plausibly be positioned, a strategy that contributes a fresh layer of visual pungency.

VIDEO: Denzel Washington Goes Rogue in ‘Safe House’ Trailer 

Having been off the grid, as they say, for a decade, veteran agent Tobin Frost (Washington) is considered “one of the most notorious traitors we’ve got,” according to CIA big shot Harlan Whitford ( Sam Shepard ); he “turned” years ago and has been selling damaging information ever since. When Tobin abruptly decides to turn himself in, he is remanded to the care of agency novice Matt Weston (Reynolds), who’s been languishing in Cape Town, South Africa, waiting for a plum assignment; he’s got one now.

Given his notoriety, Tobin’s got some tough and well-armed guys after him wherever he goes, perhaps especially now because he’s got a tiny file containing explosive info that he’s embedded under his skin. Be they terrorists, mercenaries or CIA ops, his pursuers force Tobin and Matt out of their safe house and keep gunning for them at regular intervals thereafter, which means very few minutes of Safe House ever go by with an exchange of fire or muscle power.

STORY: Scarlett Johansson, Denzel Washington Win Germany’s Golden Camera

Hovering distantly in the background is the contrast between Tobin’s worldly cynicism and Matt’s hitherto untested optimistic view of how life should operate. In the nasty world of ever-present assassins and the CIA, which complicates things further by sending two Langley operatives ( Vera Farmiga and Brenda Gleeson ) into the field after them, the naïve student has to catch up to reality but fast, which he does as the besieged men carefully make their way from the city to a township and, finally, to an isolated ranch for a final showdown.

With his charisma doing most of the work to envelop his character with the requisite alluring mystery, Washington nicely combines a world-weariness with a persistent alertness to the moment, the latter a constant requisite if Tobin is to survive yet another day. Reynolds does seem very green by comparison, and one can hardly blame him for wishing he could just get back together with his comely blond girlfriend ( Nora Arnezeder ) in Paris, but being thrown into some extremely intense mano a mano combat situations seems to be just the ticket to make a man out of him. Dramatically, the film hangs together well enough but the repetitive nature of the action and lack of stylistic shadings and nuance ultimately prove rather grinding.

The relatively unfamiliar Cape Town and vicinity locations add a measure of fresh visual interest, while Oliver Wood , who shot the first two Bourne installments, has worked with Espinosa to fashion an even more rough-and-ready style here, abetted in its grunginess by production designer Brigitte Broch.

THR Newsletters

Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every day

More from The Hollywood Reporter

Jameela jamil, lucien laviscount and more join cast of ‘people we meet on vacation’ adaptation, florence pugh says ‘we live in time’ inspired her to “be active in my decisions” and “find love”, <em>the abandon’s</em> leading man: jonathan rosenthal’s journey to success, toronto’s so-so sales bode ill for future market, sosie bacon opioid drama ‘hazard’ lands early 2025 release (exclusive), jeremy strong reveals frog scene that didn’t end up in donald trump biopic ‘the apprentice’.

"Safe House" is a viciously energetic South Africa-set actioner that makes up in sweaty atmosphere and brute force what it lacks in surprise.

By Justin Chang

Justin Chang

• Film Review: ‘A Hologram for the King’ 8 years ago
• Cannes: A Look at the Official Selection, by the Numbers 8 years ago
• Film Review: ‘Captain America: Civil War’ 8 years ago

Hardly the first movie to envision the CIA as a hotbed of corruption, secrecy and deadly internecine warfare, “ Safe House” is a viciously energetic South Africa-set actioner that makes up in sweaty atmosphere and brute force what it lacks in surprise. Swift but overlong, this mechanically effective Hollywood debut from Swedish-born helmer Daniel Espinosa (“Easy Money”) doesn’t have an original bone in its body — or, by the end, an unbroken bone between its two leads. Cat-and-mouse pairing of Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds should land punchy if not pulverizing B.O. blows at home and overseas.

Related Stories

Emmys Rebound Bolsters 2024 Awards Show Ratings

How Directors of Indie Movies Like Venice's 'The Brutalist' Have Been Helped to Shoot on Film

The first-produced screenplay by David Guggenheim superficially recalls the template of 2001’s “Training Day” in that it casts Washington as a ruthless, not-to-be-trusted avatar of violence playing malevolent mentor to a white-male rookie. But there are also shades of the “Bourne” movies present in the pic’s slamming edits and herky-jerky handheld camerawork, its de rigueur cynicism toward dirty agency politics, and its restless toggling between the men in the field and the CIA suits trying to hunt them down.

Popular on Variety

At the heart of the matter lies a particularly hoary MacGuffin: a classified list of operatives and agency secrets that must be protected at any cost. That means capturing Tobin Frost (Washington), a murderous rogue spy who has eluded the CIA for years, but has now surfaced in Cape Town with the incriminating file in his possession. A man with many enemies, as well as a name perhaps calculated to evoke serial killers and Santa Claus, Frost is ambushed by thugs barely five minutes in and winds up surrendering at the CIA’s nearest safe house .

The housekeeper on duty there is Matt Weston (Reynolds), an agency greenhorn in love with his unsuspecting French g.f. (Nora Arnezeder), bored with his far-flung outpost and ready for an exciting career in international espionage. Frost’s arrival turns out to be his make-or-break career opportunity: When the aforementioned thugs launch a ferocious attack on the safe house, Weston must go on the run with Frost, ensuring that he doesn’t let him get away — and isn’t killed by either the attackers or Frost himself.

Frost, of course, is not about to make this easy for him. When he’s not turning the tables on Weston in the middle of a crowded stadium or grabbing the wheel from him in one of the film’s many extended vehicular smash-’em-ups, this most skilled of assassins attempts to wage a subtler form of psychological warfare. Yet the cruel put-downs feel second-rate, the anti-CIA sentiments could have been lifted from a blotter, and the old-pro/young-gun dynamic never rises above routine. Washington, as cool and formidable a presence as ever, is none too energized by his material, which requires him to drop thinly veiled taunts about Weston’s sexual preferences and mutter tough-guy cliches about how impossible it is for a spy to sustain a meaningful relationship. You don’t say.

Reynolds comes off as much more alert and engaged by comparison, in part because both he and his character have more to prove. Appearing opposite a heavyweight co-star in an action-heavy vehicle that requires far more in terms of bodily endurance than f/x-laden extravaganzas like “Green Lantern,” the thesp rolls up his sleeves, benefiting from his ability to project intelligence as well as insecurity, often simultaneously. Supporting cast includes Vera Farmiga, Brendan Gleeson and Sam Shepard as three CIA execs whose various hidden allegiances will come as no surprise to anyone paying attention, as well as Ruben Blades as a world-weary old ally of Frost’s who gets closest to supplying the film with a cold, bruised heart.

Perhaps aware that his characters will compel interest only to the extent that they’re in danger at all times, Espinosa puts Frost and Weston through the physical wringer, dispensing bullet holes and stab wounds like party favors while giving stunt coordinators Greg Powell and Grant Hulley, fight coordinator Oliver Schneider and second unit director/d.p. Alexander Witt ample room to cut loose. Lenser Oliver Wood keeps the cameras on the move, and editor Richard Pearson adds another layer of disorientation by slicing and dicing every other scene into a barely coherent frenzy. In contrast with the fragmented kineticism of Paul Greengrass’ “Bourne” movies, there’s no existential dimension to the shattered-glass aesthetic here; it’s just raw, chaotic action, inelegantly shot and staged but no less unnerving for it.

Pic extracts considerable production value from its Cape Town shoot, most impressively during a chase scene set in the township of Langa, which finds Frost evading capture by leaping across slum rooftops. The ensuing destruction of homes provides an apt image of U.S. powers reducing Third World civilization to rubble, while putting a cruel spin on the pic’s title, though no one involved seems aware or particularly sympathetic.

• Production: A Universal release presented in association with Relativity Media of a Bluegrass Films production. Produced by Scott Stuber. Executive producers, Denzel Washington, Scott Aversano, Adam Merims, Alexa Faigen, Trevor Macy, Marc D. Evans. Directed by Daniel Espinosa. Screenplay, David Guggenheim.
• Crew: Camera (color, widescreen), Oliver Wood; editor, Richard Pearson; music, Ramin Djawadi; production designer, Brigitte Broch; supervising art director, Nigel Churcher; art directors, Pablo Maestre, Shira Hockman, Jonathan Hely-Hutchinson; set decorators, Melinda Launspauch, Andrew McCarthy, Tom Olive; sound, Nico Louw; sound designers, Peter Staubli, Dino R. Dimuro, Christopher Assells; supervising sound editor, Per Hallberg; re-recording mixers, Chris Jenkins, Frank A. Montano; special effects coordinator, Clive Beard; special effects supervisors, Cordell McQueen, Terry Flowers, Sam Conway; visual effects supervisor, Simon Hughes; visual effects, Image Engine; stunt coordinators, Greg Powell, Grant Hulley; fight coordinator, Olivier Schneider; assistant director, John Wildermuth; casting, Sarah Halley Finn. Reviewed at AMC Century City 15, Feb. 1, 2012. MPAA Rating: R. Running time: 114 MIN.
• With: Tobin Frost - Denzel Washington Matt Weston - Ryan Reynolds Catherine Linklater - Vera Farmiga David Barlow - Brendan Gleeson Harlan Whitford - Sam Shepard Carlos Villar - Ruben Blades Ana Moreau - Nora Arnezeder Daniel Kiefer - Robert Patrick

More from Variety

Elvis Costello Announces ‘King of America & Other Realms’ Boxed Set, Spanning Different Eras of His Adventures in Americana

Maybe Quibi Wasn’t Crazy: ‘Vertical Series’ Ventures Draw Small but Growing Audience

More from our brands, harvey weinstein pleads not guilty to new sex crime charge ahead of retrial.

This 246-Foot Electric Superyacht Concept Is Designed to Shine Like a Diamond

Philly Mayor Supports 76ers’ $1.3 Billion Downtown Arena Plan

The Best Loofahs and Body Scrubbers, According to Dermatologists

JAG’s David James Elliott and Wynonna Earp’s Melanie Scrofano to Star in Syfy’s Revival

• Cast & crew
• User reviews

Metacritic reviews

• 78 Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov Director Espinosa stages the endless action with a tremendous flair that recalls John Woo's grittier moments, and cinematographer Oliver Wood, who shot Woo's finest Hollywood moment, "Face/Off," gives the whole violent show a downright brackish look that borders on the sublime.
• 67 Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman Compared with a superior potboiler like "Salt," which messed with your brain in entertainingly far-fetched ways, Safe House is action-movie porridge gussied up into a less-clever-than-it-seems mystery.
• 60 Village Voice Village Voice [A] scattered but not totally disagreeable CIA conspiracy thriller.
• 60 Arizona Republic Bill Goodykoontz Arizona Republic Bill Goodykoontz Too often Washington is made to simply sit and observe -- which is not a fatal mistake because he is such a good actor that even then he's worth watching. Worse, though, at times he's gone altogether. That's not the only flaw in the fairly straightforward thriller, but it's the biggest.
• 58 The A.V. Club Nathan Rabin The A.V. Club Nathan Rabin Safe House does altogether too good a job establishing Washington as a seemingly unbeatable adversary: He brings so much gravity to his role that Reynolds seems hopelessly overmatched.
• 50 Variety Justin Chang Variety Justin Chang In contrast with the fragmented kineticism of Paul Greengrass' "Bourne" movies, there's no existential dimension to the shattered-glass aesthetic here; it's just raw, chaotic action, inelegantly shot and staged but no less unnerving for it.
• 50 The Hollywood Reporter Todd McCarthy The Hollywood Reporter Todd McCarthy Terse and understated, this is a spy vs. spy tale designed to minimize talk and maximize action, not at all a bad thing in movies but over-worked to near-exhaustion here.
• 50 ReelViews James Berardinelli ReelViews James Berardinelli The pacing is uneven, the frenetic action is rarely suspenseful, the dialogue is neither witty nor intelligent, and the anticlimactic endgame drags out to an improbable conclusion.
• 50 Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman Crash. Kick. Stab. Punch. Talk (briefly). Smash. Chase. Screech. Shoot. Mumble. That's the wearying pattern of Safe House. Had "think" been an action verb, the movie might have risen above the knee-jerk excitement of the second-tier, "Bourne"-style spy thriller. But it never does.
• 50 Chicago Reader Chicago Reader Espinosa never conveys any sort of perspective on the material, as Scott does through his obsessive attention to production detail; the stylization feels empty, distracting from whatever simple pleasures the routine plot (involving double agents and stolen microchips) might have delivered.
• See all 36 reviews on Metacritic.com
• See all external reviews for Safe House

More from this title

More to explore, recently viewed.