“Frost is a man on fire, and God help anyone who gets in his way.”  

Denzel Washington has to be one of the most versatile leading men in Hollywood.  In fact, I can recall no other actor in recent memory who’s so effortlessly able to move from corrupt–as Det. Alonzo Harris in “Training Day,” to inspirational–as Coach Herman Boone in “Remember The Titans”–so effortlessly.

He’s back as Tobin Frost, a morally ambiguous CIA agent who’s dropped off the grid, and may or may not be selling out his country to the highest bidder.  Washington excels at playing characters of dubious allegiance, and this role is no different.

Ryan Reynolds plays Matt Weston, a fellow agent, though unlike Frost, spends his time watching over a CIA safe house, and lying to his girlfriend about what he really does.  He’s bored with the work, and aspires to a more active role in the organization, but isn’t certain how he’s going to make that happen.

Things proceed as they typically do for Weston, till Frost ends up at his safe house, and events rapidly spin out of his, and everyone else’s ability to control (except for Frost, who seems to approach events with an almost Zen-like calm, until it’s time not to be).

Underneath the violence, and there’s plenty of it, “Safe House” is a film about fathers–who’s job is to guide their children into adulthood–and sons, who think that life is boring and without excitement, until they come to fully understand what being an adult consists of, and the painful compromises that it brings.

As I mentioned in my review of the trailer, the film, at first glance, looks like vintage Tony Scott–lots of quick cuts, choppy editing, and closeups–but Daniel Espinosa is no copycat.  Scott’s work has a similar quality, but Espinosa takes it a bit farther in that his violence isn’t as ‘pretty’ as that of Scott in that there are more examples of real world consequences to people’s actions.

The cinematography, by Oliver Wood, who did the same job on the ‘Bourne’ films, reminds me vaguely of Dion Beebe and Paul Cameron‘s work on Michael Mann’s “Collateral.” The look of the film is a bit more polished than in “Collateral,” but there’s a light grain, as if it were filmed digitally.

And speaking of the ‘Bourne’ films, the comparisons are valid because the subject matter is relatively similar, but unlike those films, Washington’s Tobin Frost doesn’t appears superhuman, which makes him more interesting to watch than Jason Bourne.

That being said, his greatest strength is simply that he’s lived long enough to become really good at what he does, which lends plausibility to the proceedings.

Brendan Gleeson, Sam Shepard, Rúben Blades and Vera Farmiga round out the supporting cast, and acquit themselves admirably, as does Ryan Reynolds (which is a good thing, considering his performance in last year’s “Green Lantern.”)

That being said, this is Washington’s film, and his performance elevates every scene that he appears in.