I thought this movie would be the rare February thriller that was more than just a decent way to kill two hours. I was wrong.
What Works: In a word: Washington. Denzel steals every scene he’s in as a rogue CIA spy with a file full of secrets that people are trying to kill him to get. But as the movie goes on, it comes up very short in its depiction of Tobin Frost. He could have had the potential to be a character on par with Training Day’s Alonzo Harris, but the movie never takes the time to flesh him out enough. Frost remains a sketchy enigma, but gradually less of an interesting one. Also, it’s always good to see Vera Farminga, Brendan Gleeson, and Sam Shepard getting work (guess which one is the mole? If you can’t guess by the first five minutes, you aren’t watching enough movies). And the movie briefly snaps to life during a fight-to-the-death between The Killing’s Joel Kinnaman (making good use of his brief screen time) and Ryan Reynolds.
What Doesn’t Work: Two years back there was a movie called “Buried” starring Ryan Reynolds as an Iraq war contractor who’d been buried alive in a coffin and the movie never left that coffin as Reynolds desperately tried to get someone to pay his ransom through cellphone. I bring it up because for once his desperate, underdog hero act didn’t feel fake and it has not felt that real since with this movie being no exception. Washington acts circles around him merely by playing an enigma with a sinister smile. Also, this movie just isn’t very good. The action is poorly staged and nondescript which is a real shame because there isn’t much else besides it. The movie is overcooked and under-plotted, one action scene after the next until the “big reveal” about what’s on Tobin’s file finally comes out and it turns out to be something so basic it’s as if the screenwriters didn’t really care.
What I Would Have Done Differently: Is it somewhere in Denzel’s contract that he can’t be the true star of a film and has to co-star with someone? Whether he’s in Training Day or Unstoppable or this film, he almost always has to share screen time with a lesser actor. Why not drop the boring rookies he has to school (in all the films in the previous sentence and more) and just have a Tobin Frost movie?