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Tag Archives: Ryan Reynolds

Safe House

March 6, 2012
Film Reviews
5 Comments

Safe House: a neglected CIA rookie sees a chance to prove himself when his safe house is attacked and he’s left to protect & contain a notorious rogue agent. Both Denzel and Reynolds are on good form, although neither’s particularly stretched given what they can do, it’s definitely easy money. In saying that, having these two does mean the characters are a bit deeper than standard action stars would be. The focus here is on straight-up, balls-to-the-wall action – about 1/2 the runtime is chase, shootout or fighting scenes, which makes for some great popcorn gawking. There are a couple of ultra-shaky cam moments where they’d have been better drawing black and white stick men hitting each other, but for the most part the action’s alright to follow. Unfortunately, this doesn’t put much thought on the plot, the story is the definition of unambitious and you can predict everything from the initial set up, right down to the final scene. Safe House may not be a particularly engaging or deep movie: “Post Bourne entry political thriller” just about sums this up, but with its eyes firmly fixed on the CrashBangWallop, it delivers ample in this department.

Score: 7/10

Buried

February 8, 2012
Film Reviews
9 Comments

Buried [Blu Ray]: An American truck driver in Iraq wakens up in a coffin with a Zippo, Blackberry phone and a few other items; his shit has hit the fan. From Reynold’s instant panic at the blacked out start, and with the entire film playing out inside the box, this is very claustrophobic and unbelievably suspenseful. As time ticks down, and the story snakes forward it’s impossible not to get whipped up in the boiling tension – especially during the latter half when bigger events unfold. It’s not often that black humour can lighten the mood but when a film is this intense, being put on hold or flippant sarcasm does take the edge off – momentarily.  Technically, it’s superb – the camera work, varied lighting and sound maximise the intensity, and for the Blu Ray, while the picture’s not particularly ‘worthy’, every single scratch, movement, phone tone and background noise punches through. The only limitation of the film is that if you don’t buy in, it will only ever be ‘a guy stuck in a box’. With a scope this tiny, you’d think 90 minutes would be a long stretch, but Buried is quite the opposite – hyper-dramatic to the very last frame – it’s amazing how much Cortés forces out of this concept, and kudos to Reynolds, who took yet another gamble on a left-field movie. Proof that a tiny, tight project can be just as good as any ‘tent-pole’ picture.

Score: 8.5/10

The Nines

September 27, 2009
Film Reviews
1 Comment

The Nines: 2007 ‘thriller’/mindfuck about a computer programmer, screen-writer and actor who are all connected in some way. It comes out of the blocks as a junkie-flick like ‘Spun’ and the rest of the first episode’s like a cheap soap with some of the cheesiest background music in history, then a documentary, then a TV movie, then a computer game… Reynold’s acting is also either a) a solid job at making the film a bit surreal, or b) so crap, he makes the film feel surreal. I think – and really hope – it’s the former. The main attraction of this film was that it’s a proper ‘thinker’. In the same vein as Waking Life and Primer you need to do a bit of thinking in to ‘get it’, otherwise it won’t make any sense. 2 days later, I’m still trying to figure it out… but that’s the attraction for me. Not the most polished piece of cinema, but definitely pushing boundaries.

Score: 7/10