Safe house movie#

After being unfairly tarred by the cruelest parts of the entertainment press as вЂњbox office poison,вЂќ the actor who spent close to a decade fighting to get Deadpool made has embraced the Merc with a Mouth persona audiences love. And theyвЂ™re seeing Reynolds in a way unlike any part heвЂ™s played in the last five years. While the picture was a modest success in 2012, earning $208 million worldwide off an $85 million budget, itвЂ™s easy to assume many audiences are discovering the film for the first time due to the globeвЂ™s most popular streaming service. This thought occurred to me while revisiting Safe House this week, particularly in lieu of the film trending so high on Netflix. For the first time in ages, it feels like youвЂ™re watching the actor play a character who isnвЂ™t Deadpool. But to see Reynolds play it so straight and so differently from what his star persona would later become is slightly jarring.

Safe house movie#

The sequence is boilerplate thriller dialogue, a generic sequence in a generic movie (at least in the 2000s and early вЂ10s).

вЂњIвЂ™m going to isolate you, Matt.вЂќ And by watching both actors, you believe him. вЂњIвЂ™m already in your head,вЂќ Washington smiles back. вЂњGo ahead, youвЂ™re not going to get in my head,вЂќ ReynoldsвЂ™ Matt Weston protests as he seemingly holds power over WashingtonвЂ™s Frost character. When Washington begins trying to get under the younger guyвЂ™s skin-poking at his insecurities like heвЂ™s Ethan Hawke in Training Day or pretty much the entire cast of Man on Fire-Reynolds is visibly shaken. But in the case of Reynolds, it plays differently than how modern audiences likely expect. As with any number of films starring these leading men, the stars are cultivating an oil and water relationship in the sequence, one built on mutual distrust and loathing as they drive across a countryside. ThereвЂ™s a scene midway through Safe House, the 2012 thriller which stars Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds, that hits entirely differently in 2021.