Trailer Tracker: Safe House, Wanderlust and More

From confinement to joyful exploration, from mischief to revenge, there is never a shortage of genres when it comes to movies – or their trailers. Our featured clip this week is the psychological action thriller Safe House with Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds about a lone federal agent tasked with transporting a dangerous fugitive. Director David Wain of Role Models fame reteams with Paul Rudd for Wanderlust, also starring Jennifer Aniston. The Hangover director Todd Phillips presents us the hand-held camera, house-party-gone-wild flick, Project X, and finally for a bit of foreign flavor is the Yakuza gangster flick Outrage. The only thing I’m angry about is that there are too many clips and so little time — it’s Trailer Tracker.

New clips this week:

Safe House
Wanderlust
Project X
Outrage

Safe House

Proven talent and a rising star team up for Safe House, where an ex-CIA agent (Denzel Washington) is put under the care of a safe house guard (Ryan Reynolds) before the secure location is besieged by armed gunmen. From then on it is an action chase flick, with Washington’s spy waging psychological war on the frantic agent as he tries to get the suspect to another facility. There are sure to be twists and turns galore here, as doubts will be raised about the nature of these attackers (are they actually working for the government?) and is the suave inmate really as guilty as he is claimed to be? This cat-and-mouse angle mixed into an action-packed chase thriller seems to offer the entire package for an entertaining diversion.

Safe House is directed by amateur Swedish director David Espinosa from a script from an equally novice screenwriter by the name of David Guggenheim, so the potential is certainly there for a breakout contribution. If the actual movie will be primarily a thriller or shoot-em’-up remains to be the seen, but the trailer certainly indicates the latter, as it’s crammed with gun fights, explosions and car chases — a pyro’s dream. Brendan Gleeson, Robert Patrick and Vera Farmiga also join the already strong cast, though one has to be wary of a Feb. 10 release window as the first two months of the year usually serve as a dead zone for quality fare. Regardless, the trailer has me pumped and shows that a full year without Denzel is too long to wait.

Wanderlust

Crisis: may it be midlife, of identity or some sort of disaster, it always serves as a helpful catalyst when writers are looking for a way to shake things up and send a story in a different direction. In Wanderlust – a word meaning just as you would think: a desire to travel in new directions – a couple played by Paul Rudd and Jennifer Aniston purchase a place in New York just as he loses his job. Desperate, they head off to Georgia to shack up with family, but find unexpected happiness at a bed and breakfast hotel that turns out to be a hippie commune. The premise and talent of Wanderlust are strong, but the trailer is of the so-so variety. I laughed out loud at one scene, and cringed at the eccentricity of another (though director David Wain’s Role Models contained a similar blend and worked) so peg me as very interested.

Project X

What if the “found footage” genre found a house party? Well, Project X  lands us in a Superbad-style setting, whereby a few teen buddies decide to throw the rager of their high school tenure, with the execution spiralling out of control as the epic party explodes into mayhem. Obviously not a horror film, and seemingly not an after-the-fact “discovery” of events but rather a faux documentary of sorts, the execution intrigues me more than the plot. Writer/director Todd Phillips producing in a godfather-like role only amps up the potential of this “gone wild” adventure.

Outrage

After competing for the Palm D’Or at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival, cult director Takeshi Kitano’s Japanese gangster flick Outrage slips closer to a North American release. Outrage focuses on an inner struggle between some of the upper echelon of the crime syndicate, including revenge and betrayal – is there any other kind? Often originating in Asia if not giving fantastic spins on the genre, I often take note of these kinds of films if (potentially) made available towards an English-speaking audience.