Safe House (2012) – By Eric Lampaert

Safe House

The most complex element of this film, in my experience, is trying to eat an ‘Innocent™ Indian daal curry with spicy cauliflower, chickpeas and fresh spinach’ in the dark, with your hands, without trying to spill any on your brand new white T-shirt. I was famished and had nothing else edible in my bag. I knew it was a mistake as I removed the lid and let the spicy aromas attack my neighbour’s nostrils and thus enforcing their eyes into exploration mode. My paranoia was imprisoned within my fleshy safe house; but totally worth it as my taste buds were tantalised with sweet tang. I very much recommend clawing diluted cuisine in a murky cinema if you want to spend every mouthful thinking, “Shit… Did I just drop a curry-covered chickpea on my white stain-loving garments? Aaaaargh! Must… Concentrate on the plot…. But my t-shirt…. It’s gonna stain…”

So that was basically what was going on in the film. I just kept thinking about stains; and not just mine! “Spy-wives, your mission, if you choose to accept it, is get all these blood stains out of your spy-husbands clothing…This washing-machine will self-destruct in 5 seconds.” I recommend hydrogen peroxide but if I’m honest, your textile is a complete write-off.

Anyway, my brain’s usually pretty Sherlock Holmes at working out where a narrative is going. And even though I did enjoy the film (I pretty much like anything with Denzel Washington. I think I have a boy-crush, with potential erection, on this black Dorian Gray) I did work out where the plot was going and who the bad guys were and why they were bad.

So in conclusion; the Safe House combination wasn’t exactly hard to solve, but I enjoyed putting my ear against the locking mechanism to prematurely reveal the script inside. All that while eating curry with my bare hands…

Written by Eric Lampaert