I recently saw the 2013 movie and was less than impressed. The story opens with Tobin Frost (Denzel Washington) being pursued by unknown assailants in South Africa. He manages to escape into the US Embassy. It is here that we learn he is an infamous traitor who has sold US Intelligence secrets for a decade. A team is sent to interrogate him but they first transfer him to a safe house that is maintained by Matt Weston (Ryan Reynolds). Weston questions the legality of the interrogation when Frost is water boarded. The interrogation has hardly begun when the very assailants who chased Frost into the embassy attack the safe house. The interrogation team is all killed and it is left to Weston to escape with Frost and find another safe house. Of course, Frost is less than keen on resuming the interrogation at another site and escapes. Disgraced and his career likely over, Weston ignores orders to stand down and starts tracking Frost.
The movie is entertaining as it goes along. There are exciting action scenes, filled with instances where Weston and Frost become allies in the face of the unknown assailants and then enemies again. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that there is a mole in the CIA who leaked the location of the safe house. The movie offers several potential leakers though it is pretty obvious all along. And that leads to the moral of this movie: American Intelligence is evil and Tobin Frost was a hero for his treason. Yes, the traitor is the hero. And Matt Weston follows in his footsteps to become the new Tobin Frost.
Why must we have movies where the United States is the bad guy? Sure, I understood that Hollywood would have the US be bad guys during the Bush Administration; Hollywood is populated by Democrats. However, we've had Obama for years and still America is portrayed as bad and corrupt. The best thing that a patriot could do for the country is to commit treason. It sometimes appears that Hollywood is the propaganda arm of a hostile foreign power.
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