Safe House - An action film by the numbers

Denzel Washington plays an ex CIA agent/special forces operative (to be honest, I forget) who gets captured and taken to the (official) CIA's most inept hideout which is promptly overrun by baddies and everyone is killed. Everyone that is, apart from plucky Ryan Reynolds who is basically the CIA's caretaker of the unsafe safe house. He therefore has to rescue Washington and escort him to safety, all the time being pursued by baddies who can wipe out a professional CIA team in seconds, but can't shoot an untrained agent and his shackled prisoner.

I can suspend my disbelief to accept all that. There's car chases, slick camera work, shoot-outs and punch-up - pretty much everything you'd expect from a modern action film. But it's still only average. The only thing that elevates it from being VERY average is Denzil Washington who, as usual, turns in a pretty decent performance, given what he has to work with. He snarls, charms and punches his way through most situations and Ryan Reynolds seems to have good chemistry with him in his attempts at keeping him both safe and cuffed at the same time.

If anyone else was in the film it would simply be average, but if you like the sound of another car chase-laden action film with a better than average cast, give this one a go. It might be slightly longer than your average action flick, but it's entertaining enough not to bore.

6/10 May just keep you awake if Freddy Krueger was haunting your nights