Flight

            I really wanted to see Man With The Iron Fists this weekend.  I really did.  I love every single aspect of the film, from the director to the producer to the actors.  The plot looks solid and the film strikes me as a good time.

           

            On to the review!

            So anyways, I saw Flight this weekend, and it's nice to see Robert Zemeckis direct a movie that didn't involve the uncannyvalley.  For a man who was pretty damn awesome for so long (Back to the Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Cast Away) I feared his releases for the last decade or so (Beowulf, The Polar Express, A Christmas Carol).  That there are almost no special effects in Flight is awesome.

            I recently received some constructive criticism that I may be a bit too spoiler-heavy, so let me try to relate why you should watch Flight during this crowded film season without giving anything away.

            Denzel Washington is Whip Whitaker, a supremely confident yet troubled pilot.  The opening scene does everything in its power to drive home the fact that Whip is not a hero per se, merely a man who performs a heroic act.  As you've seen by the trailer, he kind of lands a passenger aircraft under duress, at one point even flying upside-down.

            What the trailer doesn't tell you is that his story intertwines with that of Nicole (Kelly Reilly).  They meet shortly after the crash, and discover that they both have some demons that may or may not need exorcising.

            Most of the film follows Whip as he tries to deal with life during the lead-up to a hearing held after the crash investigation.  One of the things I liked most about Flight is how realistic the plot was.  After a crash, everything needs to be investigated and a scapegoat needs to be found.  The union wants to blame the airline or the manufacturer, while neither the airline nor the parts manufacturers are willing to take blame either.  This cat-fighting really helps add to the overarching tension of the movie.

            In Whip's corner are his union-appointed attorney Hugh Lang (Don Cheadle), his union rep Charlie Anderson (Bruce Greenwood)--who also served with Whip in the Navy--and Whip's lawyer, Harling Mays (John Goodman).  While everyone does a great job in their roles, Goodman once again delivers an outstanding, outsized performance despite limited screen time.  In fact, I'm not sure I've ever seen Goodman in a movie--good or bad--where I didn't like his performance.  He's like a much larger Christopher Walken.

            While a bit on the long side at 138 minutes, Flight makes up for it by rewarding your patience with incredible acting everywhere you look.  At no point was I bored or restless, nor did it seem that anyone in the theater could tear their eyes off the screen for even a moment.  Hell, this is the first time I can remember where not a single person in front of me (and I always sit in the back) got up to use the restroom!

            I absolutely will not be surprised to see Denzel Washington nominated for a Best Actor Oscar, and I would not be disappointed to see him win it.  He plays such a morally ambiguous character to such perfection that you are constantly unsure if you should root for or against him. 

            It's good to see Zemeckis back and directing people who are just people, not CGI or motion capture.  He still has incredibly skills, and this story keeps you guessing until the final scene.  You may hate me for this, but I don't care: I say this is far better than Forrest Gump and almost as good as Cast Away.

Safe House

            Please don't take my man card.  What I'm about to tell you may be upsetting, but I still think I deserve to keep it because I still love war movies.  The boilerplate CIA thriller is starting to get really really really really really boring.  Also, predictable.

            On to the review!

            Safe House is 2012's Killer Elite.  They both share the idea of a rising star getting together with a known money-maker and trying to give the audience a spy thriller action flick with a twist.  Instead of Jason Statham and Robert De Niro working together to piss off Clive Owen, we get Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds fighting each other and everyone else. 

            Ryan Reynolds is Matt Weston, a young CIA agent who gets a good ol' 'shitty first posting' because damnit, he's the FNG.  That's just what you do when you're the new guy.  You get crappy postings until you prove yourself.  Why back in my day I had to guard a safe house under Lake Ontario for two years and they wouldn't even let me have a proper toilet!  Of course, Matt doesn't want to be in boring old Cape Town, South Africa.  He wants a more exciting posting, like Paris or Detroit.

            Conveniently, Denzel Washington's Tobin Frost, a rogue CIA agent who has given the USA all sorts of shit for the last 10 years, gets himself in a bind and has no choice but to turn himself in to the American Consulate in...dun-dun-duuuun...Cape Town!  Since it's illegal to waterboard a wanted fugitive on American soil, the powers that be decide to transport Frost to the safe house to milk him for information.

            Predictably, this is exactly when things go to shit.  The safe house is compromised and Matt has to fight off the guys who want to get Frost.  Even better, Matt also has to fight Frost, since he understandably doesn't want to be tortured and probably disposed of.  This is the bread and butter of the film, an hour of Frost fucking with Matt's head as they fight off and evade their unidentified tormentors.

            The best parts of the movie are when Frost is trying to extricate himself from Matt's grasp.  Two scenes in particular were genuinely fun to watch.  One finds Matt and Frost in a car chase, with Frost trying to extricate himself from the trunk while they're being chased by three oversized SUV's.  The other involves a game of cat and mouse in a huge soccer stadium(football stadium, for everyone in the world who isn't American).

            The bummer of the whole movie is that, despite some entertaining set-pieces, Safe House is absolutely boilerplate.  There's a mole in the CIA!  Someone isn't who they seem to be!  They give you three or four people who may be the traitor, then make it painfully obvious as to who it actually is.  If you're surprised by the twist then you were probably taken to this movie by your caretakers.  I don't know exactly what that means but it implies that you're dumb.

            I'm getting sick of the hand-held camera and I'm beyond sick of the thriller-without-thrills.  Safe House could have been a tense, entertaining action movie.  Unfortunately, it's exactly like the last dozen CIA movies before it.  It seems that Denzel Washington is typecasting himself into his Man on Fire persona.  Ryan Reynolds is trying very hard to keep himself from being pigeonholed as a comedic actor, but he doesn't bring the nuance that he brought to Buried.       Basically, you can do better with your money.  Go watch The Grey or just read a Tom Clancy novel.  I will say that it's better than Killer Elite, but you'd probably enjoy any of the Bourne films much more.