Review of Safe House (2012) by Catzzz — 12 Feb 2012

I can overlook a lot of flaws for a good action flick. But this movie is so flawed all the way through, there is nothing left to like. How some reviewers can think that "documentary style" camerawork enhances filming is beyond me.

"Safe House" is shot like a shaky hand-held home movie -- maybe they did use a hand-held camera? How else could they have gotten all the jiggling and swinging up and down, back and forth? It's often hard to tell who's fighting, much less who's winning and how they're doing it.

I guess the shakiness and jiggling are meant to keep the audience on edge, but to me it's cheating to try to create effects that should come from the action with just an annoying, uneven camera. It did keep me on edge, but in an irritating way, not an entertaining way.

This jiggling is kept up all through the movie -- not just in the chase and fight scenes, but also in offices and phone conversations, the camera just can't stay put. There's not much of a plot, either, but this isn't essential in an entertaining action movie, which this definitely is not.