Mill
Creek Entertainment has released a Blu-ray edition of Universal Pictures’ Safe
House from 2012.This spy thriller
features a first-rate cast including Denzel Washington, Ryan Reynolds, Vera
Farmiga, Brendan Gleeson, Ruben Blades and Sam Shepard.
Directed
by Sweden’s Daniel Espinoza, the story concerns the capture and escape of a
former CIA operative who possesses damning evidence that his superiors are
spilling secrets to anyone with a large bank account.The script is by David Guggenheim and may
remind viewers of Matt Damon’s Bourne films.
Ryan
Reynolds plays Matt Weston, a young CIA agent stuck on housekeeping duty at an
empty safe house in Capetown, South Africa. He's restless and eager for a more important
post in a less isolated location. The
house doesn't see much action, nor does Weston apart from conjugal visits from
his gorgeous girlfriend played by Nora Arnezeder. That is, until the CIA brings in Tobin Frost (Denzel
Washington), a rogue agent wanted for selling state secrets to the highest
bidder.
Right
off the bat we learn that Frost is highly skilled at manipulating those around
him as his captors are intimidated by his history with the agency.He is calm and recognizes that the agents
escorting him to the safe house are following all the standard procedures.In one tense scene Frost is tortured by
waterboarding as the agents need to know what information he has shared with
the enemy.
It
soon becomes apparent that Frost’s contacts on the other side are not too happy
with him either as a squad of assassins arrives at the supposedly secure
location. Weston and Frost manage to escape before the gunmen swarm the
building. It's now Weston's
responsibility to bring his charge back to the American embassy in one piece. Not an easy task for a rookie, considering
Frost's attempts to ditch his captor and their pursuers' attempts to kill them
before they reach safety.
The
remainder of the film is one gigantic chase throughout Capetown as it revealed there
is a mole within the agency feeding details to the other side.Car chases, gun battles and hand-to-hand
fights abound as Weston begins to doubt Frost’s guilt.At one point, Frost tries to confuse his
captor by saying “They’re going to put their arm around you and tell you things
like ‘You did a decent job, son.We’ll
take it from here.’That’s when you know
you’re screwed.â€After hearing that line
you know one of the bosses will actually say it.
The
double agent within the CIA is soon revealed and a smashing fight scene along
with a couple of surprising plot twists bring the story to a satisfying
conclusion.
Denzel
Washington demonstrates why he is a two-time Academy Award winner with his
performance in this film.He’s cagey and
understated in his portrayal of Frost and viewers are never quite sure if he’s
a traitor or not.With this role and his
appearances in the two Equalizer movies, Washington is fast becoming another
action star in the manner of Keanu Reeves’ assassin in the John Wick adventures.
Ryan
Reynolds takes a straight-laced approach as Weston, the bored safe house
monitor suddenly thrust into the center of an international espionage
incident.He relies on his training and
instructions from his handler played by Brendan Gleeson.Weston begins to question his superiors as
Frost gets inside his head sowing doubts.
Sam
Shepard and Vera Farmiga are serviceable as CIA leaders back at Quantico
Headquarters although there is not enough development to make them truly
interesting characters.Ruben Blades has
a small, but memorable role as a document forger that Frost contacts in an
attempt to leave South Africa.Nora
Arnezeder is criminally underutilized as Weston’s physician girlfriend.Her role requires her to be annoyed most of
the time.
The
thugs chasing Tobin are stereotypical Middle Eastern villains who are highly
skilled at killing several hapless CIA agents.The script focuses on Frost and Weston and their mano y mano encounters
as both adversaries and allies.This is
the crux of the story and director Espinoza keeps it moving at a breakneck
pace.The violence is bone crushing, but
not overly bloody.
Editor
Richard Pearson deserves much credit for keeping the action at a warp speed
level throughout the entire film.Most
of the time I find these quick cut thrillers annoying and hard to watch.Michael Bay’s frenetic movies come to mind
when everything looks a trailer for a second rate action flick.Pearce keeps the pace without giving viewers
a migraine, and he is helped by cinematographer Oliver Wood who doesn’t allow
the individual cuts to go all shaky cam on us.Wood also uses tight framing to provide a feeling of desolation in many
of the location shots even though the story is mostly set in a major city.
Composer
Ramin Djawadi provides a wonderful score for the film that utilizes styles and
instrumentation reflecting the film’s setting in South Africa.Music is sometimes not noticed in action and
chase scenes until those brief moments when there are no sound effects from the
cars and guns.There would be awkward
breaks without the music to fill in the blanks.
Safe
House is a terrific film for the stunts and shootout sequences which more than
compensate for the lack of character development.You may not always know what is going on, but
your interest is definitely captured by the cat and mouse game between the two
main characters.The bigger the screen
and the louder the sound, the more you will enjoy this movie.
The
Blu-ray disc issued by Mill Creek Entertainment deserves kudos for the
presentation of the film.The video
quality is terrific with just enough of a gritty quality to put an edge on all
scenes.The 5.1 sound mix is loud and heavy
on the bass.Explosions will jump out at
those viewers using higher end surround systems.Fans of Blu-ray extras will be disappointed,
however, as there are none with the exception of optional English
subtitles.However, the film itself
looks fantastic and, as drive-in critic Joe Bob Briggs might say, things blow
up real good.
High
school friends Enid Coleslaw (Thora Birch) and Rebecca Doppelmeyer (Scarlett
Johansson) absolutely cannot wait to be free of the prison of school, defiantly
flipping the bird and squashing their mortarboards following their graduation.
Enid isn’t off the hook just yet: her “diploma†is instead a note informing her
that she must “take some stupid art class†(her words) if she hopes to graduate.
Their fellow classmates are caricatures of everyone we all knew during our
adolescence. Melora (Debra Azar) is inhumanly happy all the time and oblivious
to Enid and Rebecca’s sense of ennui and contempt. Todd (T.J. Thyne) is
ultra-nervous to talk with the insouciant Rebecca at the punchbowl. Another bespectacled
student sits off by himself. Enid and Rebecca are at both an intellectual and
emotional crossroads. They want to share an apartment; however, they seem unaware
of the amount of money they will have to come up with for such a
venture. Instead of finding jobs, their post-graduation afternoons are spent
meandering through life while frowning upon society, following strange people
home, bothering their mutual friend Josh (Brad Renfro) and admiring the Weird
Al wannabe waiter at the new 50’s-themed diner which plays contemporary music.
Seemingly without a care in the world, the women have no plans to attend
college, preferring instead to prank an unsuspecting nebbish named Seymour (Steve
Buscemi) who has placed a personal ad in an attempt to communicate with a
striking blonde he noticed, with Enid feigning said blonde on Seymour’s
answering machine. Rebecca is a dour and solemn counterpoint to Enid’s aloof
yet occasionally jovial demeanor. If
Holden Caulfield had a girlfriend, she might be someone just like Enid,
sneering at the losers and phonies in her midst. Searching out Seymour, they
approach him and his roommate at a garage sale where he is unloading old
records for next to nothing. His affection for collecting 78 rpms begins to
endear him to Enid, who confides in Rebecca that she likes him despite their
25-year age difference. They have some truly funny moments together such as
attending a “party†for guys who talk techno mumbo-jumbo, riding in the car
together as Seymour screams at people walking through an intersection, and a
humorous romp through an adult video and novelty store.
Rebecca grows tired of hearing about Seymour,
and presses Enid to get a job but she only succeeds in getting fired repeatedly,
even from her position at the concession stand at a Pacific Theatre cinema when
she ribs the customers over their choice of movie and their willingness to eat
popcorn with “chemical sludge†poured on it. The tone of the film shifts from
one of comedic commentary on the world to one of disillusionment as Enid begins
to feel her world slowly begin to crumble around her. Her friendship with
Rebecca, an anchor in her life for years, is ending and like so many of us at
that age, she has no idea where her life is going or what she needs to be doing
when she isn’t changing her hair color or her now-famous blue Raptor t-shirt or
donning punk rock garb as a sartorial statement. Her summer art teacher
(Illeana Douglas) shows her students her personal thesis film Mirror, Father, Mirror which itself is a
parody of the pretentious student films submitted to professors. She pushes
Enid to create interesting and powerful art when Enid is only interested in
drawing the people she knows and Don Knotts. In short, nothing seems to be
going well for her. The only person she can rely on is Norman, the well-dressed
man who sits on a bench at a bus stop that stopped service a long time ago and
holds the key to the film’s long-debated denouement. Enid is almost like an
older version of Jane Burnham, the character portrayed by Ms. Birch in American Beauty (1999). In that film,
she barely reacted to her father (Kevin Spacey) and here her contempt for her
father (Bob Balaban) and his girlfriend Maxine (Teri Garr) is even more
perceptible.
Director Terry Zwigoff takes the source
material created by artist and writer Daniel Clowes and fashions one of the
most brilliantly entertaining and poignant ruminations on adolescence the
silver screen has ever seen. Ghost World
also boasts excellent use of music, much of it pre-existing, although the main
theme by David Kitay is an elegiac
piano theme that recalls David Shire’s theme to The Conversation (1974). The film starts with a bang to the
seemingly non-diegetic tune of the Mohammed Rafi hit “Jaan Pehechaan Ho†from
the 1965 Hindi film Gumnaam, the
scenes of which are intercut with images of the apartment complex’s
inhabitants. As the camera tracks from the exterior windows of these
grotesqueries, it settles upon Enid’s bedroom where the night before graduation
she dances to the aforementioned tune which we now see is being played back on a
bootleg VHS tape. The beat is frenetic and infectious. Enid, for the first of
only a handful of times in the entire film, appears to be in a state of joy as
she mimics the moves of the dancers. If only she could always feel this way! With this singular sequence, Mr. Zwigoff
achieves something reserved for only the greatest and rarest of filmmakers – re-identifying
a popular musical piece with his movie. I can’t hear “The Blue Danube†without
thinking of spaceships spinning throughout the galaxy.
Ghost World opened on Friday, July 20, 2001 in
limited release in New York and Los Angeles and garnered immediate critical
acclaim. Filmed in 2000, the film is a product of a simpler and more innocent
time. Before the brutal wake-up call of the September 11th attacks, there is a
complete lack of cell phone usage in the film. It makes a great companion to
2001’s other minor masterpiece of adolescent angst, the cult favorite Donnie Darko.