Stop shaking the camera already!

Review

Plot holes and clichéd writing aside, "Safe House" suffers from -- and is practically ruined by -- director Daniel Espinosa's decision to run with the shaky camera/fast editing combination that frequently ruins action films.

I refer to it as the "Chronicles of Riddick" syndrome: action scene cuts very quickly between several jerky shots that don't make any sense.

I think the goal is to create a sense of urgency in the viewer, but the result is confusion. I lost count of the number of times during "Safe House," in which I was clueless as to exactly what was happening on the screen. It's hard for me to feel any type of suspense when I am using all my (limited) mental powers just trying to figure out what's going on.

Ryan Reynolds stars as Matt Weston, a CIA agent who has been running a safe house in South Africa for 12 months. During that time span he hasn't had a single guest and has developed a rather predictable case of cabin fever.

That all changes with the arrest of Tobin Frost (Denzel Washington), a former CIA agent who has been stealing and selling classified military information. Weston is given little notice before Frost arrives, and only a few minutes later a team of rebels busts into the safe house and forces Weston to flee with Frost.

It's not a bad set-up. For the first 20 minutes or so, "Safe House" was pretty interesting. Then the plot twists got confusing as agents double-crossed, uncrossed then triple-crossed each other.

But I can deal with silly plot twists. I've liked all kinds of borderline-confusing action thrillers that pushed my suspension of disbelief to the edge.

"Safe House" has two faults I couldn't get past: the aforementioned confusing action scenes and the tendency to make really good actors say lines that sound contrived, more fit for a CBS military drama than the big screen.

Neither Vera Farmiga ("The Departed") or Brendan Gleeson (Alastor Moody from "Harry Potter") are able to bring any life to their one-note characters. Farmiga is even playing a role similar to one she played in "Source Code," but the lines still sound contrived. You can almost predict what characters are going to say before they say it.

Washington never seems all that interested in what's going on around him. I really can't blame him, either, since most of his movies are better than this one.

Reynolds is just the opposite -- he's trying really hard to pull off the cool, focused agent who has to make the most of his big chance. I can't blame him for trying, either, since "Safe House" is still better than most of his movies.

As the movie progresses, the action scenes become more frequent, naturally, and the movie becomes one big mess of shaking cameras and people squirming. I didn't care what happened to any of them, to be honest. I just kept hoping that I wasn't going to get motion sickness.

Now I don't want to give the impression that "Safe House" is catastrophically bad, because it's not. I don't think it will be on any "Worst 10" lists this time next year or anything.

It's bad, but forgetfully bad. One of those movies you'll see flipping through the channels in 10 years and just say, "Oh yeah, I saw that movie." You might stop on it to see what you remember, but it won't take more than 10 minutes before you stop and say, "Oh yeah, I did see this movie" then continue channel surfing.

"Safe House" is rated R for strong violence throughout and some language.