And as Training Day and American Gangster proved, Washington’s excellent at playing dark characters, even though his acting career is filled overwhelmingly with more wholesome, heroic protagonists.

Washington and Reynolds, are required, therefore, to bring all the depth to their roles they can, while at the same time trading punches, dodging bullets, and crashing cars. 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.As is often the case in action thrillers, the race to keep the plot moving along means that Safe House’s characters are thinly drawn at best. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. STORY: Scarlett Johansson, Denzel Washington Win Germany’s Golden Camera 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. 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. 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. 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. VIDEO: Denzel Washington Goes Rogue in ‘Safe House’ Trailer

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. 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. Ryan Reynolds to Receive Robin Williams Legacy of Laughter Award at Bring Change to Mind Gala

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