Safe House

Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on September 2012

In this superb example of bargain basement Bourne, Ryan Reynolds is a green-but-eager CIA safe-house keeper on the run with his charge, a notorious rogue spook (a sleepwalking Denzel Washington who nonetheless overwhelms Reynolds in every scene). Denzel possesses a file fingering every corrupt British and American agent, yada yada snore. The pacing’s uneven, the dialogue’s dumb, the characters clichéd. Mostly this retread alternates between generic and often superfluous car/bike chases and unforgivable mano-a-mano ultraviolence. The only suspense is which of their covertly corrupt superiors is the hidden traitor.