Safe House

A "by the book" espionage thriller starring Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds borrows heavily from "Three Days of The Condor" and manages to hold your attention with some exciting action sequences. Mr. Reynolds (known mostly as "eye candy") has been improving his acting (ok, forget Green Lantern) and does a decent job as the rookie CIA agent overseeing a safe house when CIA traitor Tobin Frost (Mr. Washington) is brought in as a prisoner. Of course circumstances find them on the run together and back at Langley, not all is what it seems.

The film co-stars Sam Shepard, Vera Farminga, and Brendan Gleeson as top level CIA brass trying to decide how to best handle their missing agent dilemma. There is nothing special here but writer David Guggenheim has obviously seen plenty of these spy genre films so he knows how to keep things moving. Credit director Daniel Espinosa for staging a terrific car chase and some first rate fight scenes to keep the audience involved and not thinking too much about the plethora of plot holes.

Mr. Washington along with Mr. Reynolds work hard, with minimal dialogue, for your enjoyment and the film succeeds as crowd pleasing entertainment if you like lots of gunplay, explosions and car crashes.