This movie owes a lot to the likes of 24, Spy Game, Training Day, Assault on Pr…

Actually, no point in listing those except to show off. There’s a conversation between two characters in Safe House about simple pleasures of life, and perhaps this movie is such a simple pleasure. The plot is wholly unoriginal, but so what? It’s the little touches that I found most rewarding: the figurative hyper-realistic filters bolted onto the camera lens, Ramin Djawadi’s incidental music, the exotic-but-not-too-exotic locations, slightly blurry all-caps Franklin Gothic as a typeface for captions…

Sigh. I am still showing off. It was, all in all, a surprisingly enjoyable two hours. Denzel Washington is always a pleasure, although that inkling you already have that he’s not really going to be a bad guy…? Stick with it. Ryan Reynold’s anguished looks and puppy eyes – oh, well, fan service you could live with even if you’re not a fan. (I can neither confirm nor deny the rumours about me being one.)

The one thing I took out of this movie is that if you want to work as a secret agent, one skill you have to master is walking at a regular inconspicuous pace in the crowd, while people who’s sole mission is to catch and kill you are just a block away. I only wonder what the training for this must be like in Langley.