If you’re going to watch Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds traipse through the stinker that is Safe House , at least have fun with the unofficial Safe House Drinking Game, courtesy of the fine folks at Film School Rejects : “TAKE A DRINK WHEN YOU SEE: a flag, an explosion, a close-up on a computer screen… TAKE A DRINK WHEN SOMEONE SAYS ‘Frost,’ ‘house,’ ‘file’ or ‘files,’ the name of a city…” Might I also suggest taking a swig every time you find yourself on the verge of a shaky-cam migraine ? Prepare to get wasted . [ Film School Rejects ]
What a weekend for Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax : The environmentally tinged adaptation became the latest of the beloved author’s film spinoffs to capture the top box-office perch. Meanwhile, the raunchy Project X settled in quietly behind it, earning roughly a dollar per topless scene en route to second place. Your Weekend Receipts are here. 1. Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax Gross: $70,700,000 (new) Screens: 3,729 (PSA $18,960) Weeks: 1 What can I say? A generation is indoctrinated to the left! Lou Dobbs will be outraged ! Malia Obama for president in 2036! 2. Project X Gross: $20,775,000 (new) Screens: 3,055 (PSA $6,800) Weeks: 1 Not so bad an opening for the critically reviled bit of mayhem from the mind of Todd Phillips — but good enough for a sequel? Project Y , coming to DVD and Blu-ray by the holidays? Hell, the way these things are shot, maybe by Memorial Day. 3. Act of Valor Gross: $13,700,000 ($45,239,000) Screens: 3,053 (PSA: $4,487) Weeks: 2 (Change: -44%) The Navy SEALs-against-the-world propaganda exercise held up reasonably well in its second week, setting up next weekend’s crucial Lorax vs. Valor ideology face-off for fourth place — or maybe even third place, considering the smallish release for Eddie Murphy’s A Thousand Words . Place your bets. Or I can just wake you when it’s April, your call. 4. Safe House Gross: $7,200,000 ($108,200,000) Screens: 2,533 (PSA $2,820) Weeks: 4 (Change: -34.1%) I can only imagine the back-and-forth between Denzel Washington’s WME team and Ryan Reynolds’s CAA crew this morning as they struggle to take primary credit for their stars’ stunning collaborative success. If I didn’t know any better, I’d just attribute the whole phenomenon to Harvey Weinstein, because what triumphs hasn’t he wrought in the last seven days? 5. Tyler Perry’s Good Deeds Gross: $7,000,000 ($25,745,000) Screens: 2,132 (PSA $3,283) Weeks: 2 (Change: -55.1%) Tyler Perry is nothing if not consistent, on track for another mid-$30 million performer sans the Madea muumuu. He’d argue that a wider release would sweeten the box office, and for this one in particular I’d agree — though I’d rather simply see him split the franchise difference and attempt Why Did I Get Married 3-D . They’ve got The Rock in the series now! Seriously, blockbuster city. [Figures via Box Office Mojo ] Follow S.T. VanAirsdale on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Safe House is a twisted claw of a movie, a picture so visually ugly that, to borrow a line from Moms Mabley, it hurt my feelings. Let’s forget, for a moment, about the sub-sub-sub- Training Day plot, in which a wily old-coot operative played by Denzel Washington simultaneously annoys and educates spring-chicken CIA agent Ryan Reynolds. The plot mechanics don’t matter much. What does matter is the inexplicable horror of how lousy this film looks. Movies aren’t strictly a visual medium — they’re too complicated for that — but there’s something wrong when the only thing you can think of while watching a picture is, “Damn! My eyes!” Where to lay the blame? It’s hard to say, but let me unwrap these gauze bandages and I’ll try. The director of Safe House is Swedish-born director Daniel Espinosa, who made a 2010 crime caper called Easy Money . Are the horrors of Safe House completely his fault? Probably not. The script, by David Guggenheim, seems serviceable enough, if generic: Washington’s character, a fugitive smoothie named Tobin Frost, is brought in by the CIA for questioning and a little waterboarding. It’s all in a day’s work, right? Frost has info the organization desperately wants. Of course, other people want it, too: The joint where Frost has been locked up is suddenly overrun by Middle Eastern-looking baddies, who try to kill him. Poor Matt Weston, Reynolds’ character, has been entrusted to watch Frost and needs to spirit him away to safety, thus giving Frost many opportunities to chuckle derisively at the antics of this plucky little greenhorn. Meanwhile, somewhere at CIA headquarters, a bunch of people in suits — played by Sam Shepard, Brendan Gleeson and Vera Farmiga, among others — call up info on Frost on big computer screens, loudly reciting Important Facts about this Very Dangerous Man. Through it all, Frost and Weston have to run around. A lot. They also have to shoot people. A lot. And they also get shot at. A lot. All of these things are standard in contemporary action thrillers — by themselves, they’re not enough to make or break a picture. Washington and Reynolds don’t seem to give particularly bad performances — in fact, they run around, shoot people and get shot at with actorly proficiency. The problem is, it’s just so hard to look at them. Like many features these days, Safe House was shot with a handheld camera. But while smart filmmakers have learned to chill out with the camera jiggling, the Safe House cameras are partying like it’s 2009: This isn’t just shaky-cam, it’s super -shaky-cam. The camera moves back and forth, up and down, just because it can. Craving a bunch of wholly unnecessary circular pans? Safe House has ’em! The tonal palette consists mostly of ochre yellows and greeny grays — cataract colors. And the editing is razor-sharp, meticulous and rapid-fire — so razor-sharp, meticulous and rapid-fire that you can’t really see anything. It’s like eating vegetables that have been sliced so thin they barely exist. Safe House is, I guess, pretty violent, from what you can actually see: There’s some ewky business in which flesh is stabbed with a shard of glass. Yet despite the presence of this sort of brutality, the picture has no pulse. It’s so crappy looking it anesthetizes you — the story it’s trying to tell dissolves away to vapor. So who’s holding the bag for this stinkbomb? The cinematographer, Oliver Wood, has shot plenty of other movies that look perfectly fine, including Surrogates and Fantastic Four , as well, as perhaps most tellingly, the Bourne movies. The editing is by Richard Pearson, who cut The Bourne Supremacy , as well as other cogent features like Quantum of Solace and United 93 . Moviegoers are divided, of course, on the way the Bourne movies have been shot and edited: For some, they’re too crazy, too disconnected, too frenetic. I think they generally work, coasting on their sheer peripatetic energy — but it’s possible their time has passed. It’s also possible that Safe House , while borrowing its style from the Bourne movies, is simply missing some key ingredient: What if every shot were held just one or two seconds longer? What if the camera jiggle was controlled even by just a few centimeters at the top, bottom and sides of the frame? What if the colors didn’t look as if they’d been run through the washer and dryer on the extra-hot setting, every day for three months straight? Then, maybe, it would be possible to look at Safe House directly without having to immediately remedy the experience with two Tylenol. Extra-strength. And throw in some Codeine, too. Please. Follow Stephanie Zacharek on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Denzel Washington is back in fighting form in the upcoming spy thriller Safe House . Washington plays Tobin Frost, the most dangerous renegade from the CIA, who comes out of hiding after a decade on the run. When the South African safe house he’s remanded to is attacked by mercenaries, a rookie operative (Ryan Reynolds) escapes with him. Now, the unlikely allies must stay alive long enough to uncover who wants them dead. The trailer features “No Church In The Wild” from Jay-Z and Kanye’s “Watch The Throne” hit album. Watch trailer below: Safe House hits theaters nationwide February 10, 2012
