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(More customer reviews)I pulled SAFE HOUSE, a made-for-cable thriller, off the video rack solely because it stars Patrick Stewart. I mean, how bad could it be? In reality, it was much, much better than expected.
Stewart plays Mace Sowell, a reclusive widower living in the Hollywood Hills inside a house packed with more security systems and personal weaponry - pistols hidden in every room - than were ever aboard the Starship Enterprise. Mace claims to be a retired deep-cover agent for the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), a fact that has put him in mortal danger for a reason he leaves unspecified. He's also obsessively disturbed by the political progress of a certain presidential candidate, who's apparently on his way to winning the Oval Office by a landslide. His fears are given little credence by his daughter, her husband, or the psychiatrist retained by the former to treat her Old Man's apparent delusions. The daughter has also just hired Andi, a perky young college graduate, to be Mace's live-in cook and housekeeper. Kimberly Wiliams plays Andi, short for Andrea, whose character displays a delicate beauty and charming appeal somewhat reminiscent of Audrey Hepburn.
It's been made perfectly clear to Andi that she's not Mace's employee to fire, so the cardinal delight of the film's first third is watching the curmudgeonly Sowell (with a capital "C") engage in a battle of wits with Andi for turf rights as she gamely carries out her assignment. Luckily, Andi is made of tough stuff. She cleanly fields the verbal and psychological abuse that Mace throws at her, and sometimes manages to give back as good as she gets. Eventually, they reach a working compromise and a certain friendship, at about which time Mace begins to display the symptoms of advancing Alzheimer's Disease, thus further hindering his ability to "stay sharp" and repel any assault made on his home or person.
From the beginning, any watcher of SAFE HOUSE will assume the truth of the adage that even paranoids have enemies. So, when will Mace's doomsday materialize? Even Andi begins to wonder as Sowell's convictions begin to draw her in. Stewart gives a performance that is alternately dramatic, witty, and poignant. Williams is positively beguiling. During the scene when she is first alone with Mace and struggling to establish a verbal rapport, her facial expressions as she deals with his silent recalcitrance are priceless. Although some things go unexplained, as to how the neighbors or the LAPD would tolerate Mace's live-fire pistol practice in his back yard, I enjoyed this film very much.
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SAFE HOUSE - DVD Movie
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