Safe House, Patrick Stewart's tour de wtf

[sigma7]

Inspired by beeform's invocation of this flick -- over the weekend I got sucked into a viewing of Safe House, a 1999 Patrick Stewart movie airing on, of all things, the Hallmark Channel. It was, urm, odd.

The premise sounds like a comedy: Stewart is Mace, an ex-intelligence officer who's secluded in his high-tech home, paranoid of being killed by someone from his past, and to keep his reflexes and guard up he runs "drills" with his obliging (and only) friend Stuart. The "drills" involve Stuart breaking in, testing the perimeter, trying to kill Mace in typically creative ways, and Mace finds himself more than up to the task...until Alzheimer's disease begins to slow him down, wear on his children's already-fragile tolerance of their father, and he begins to question his own competency. Enter Kimberly (Father of the Bride) Williams, a live-in psychiatrist hired by the family to help him cope and who seems to take on the task of introducing him to normalcy. She does well enough to make you scratch your head and wonder wha'ever happened to her....

Not only does it sound like a comedy, it plays like a comedy for most of its run. For a few moments, it veers into being a drama -- Stewart's grappling with his doubts and encroaching debilitations is powerful stuff, something you'd expect from an actor of his caliber. But the final few plot twists reveal exactly why it's labelled a "thriller," even though there's barely a half-hearted attempt to integrate the mood of this final act with the rest of the movie -- there's just not enough justification for it on the screen. You're ready for a lot of things when you're tied to Mace's POV -- you're ready for a betrayal and a conspiracy and attack from all sides, but even with his mindset, I don't think the flick earns the ending it so desperately wants for itself.

It bills itself a thriller, but it's not. At very best, it's a comedic thriller, and that's being gracious. It's more an occasionally dramatic comedy with "thrilling" (thematic, not literal) moments and some late-minute plot twists attached with two-by-fours to the rest of the film. It's worth seeing if only to enter a debate on genre and style -- when does a plot become a comedy/drama/thriller -- and to see Patrick Stewart dressed up like a rabbi, which he doesn't do enough. Very few actors could be enthralling and subtle enough to carry a nuanced role like this, but Stewart's on that short list. It's not all a bad movie. It could do with a rewrite, or perhaps end 30 minutes sooner. Still the best thing on TV on Saturday. Gah.

Comments

[foenix.livejournal.com]

I saw this a few years ago when it premiered on Showtime, I believe. I rather liked it. Not a great film, and as you say, flawed. But it was quite fun, and a decent time killer popcorn movie. And Stewart is almost always worth the price of admission. I don't think this film would've floated without his particular gravitas.

J