When I first saw the trailer, I immediately drew this film on my “to watch” list. After seeing Machine Gun Preacher, it was nothing I was expecting. It was better.

The story is centralized around Sam Childers, a man with a heavy criminal past. When he hits rock bottom, he finds God and with the love of his wife, daughter and mother and manages to turn things around. Inspired by a preacher working in Sudan, Sam decides to go to Africa and help those in need.

From the looks of it, Machine Gun Preacher would seem like a perfect feel-good film, starring a man with a criminal past, who almost over night turns things around and goes to Africa to help orphans. It isn’t. Director Marc Forster has done a fantastic job building up the character of Sam Childers (not to mention Gerard Butler who plays the man). He is a complicated man, conflicted with the urge and will to do good but with the means of evil, with the responsibility of his wife and daughter and with the orphans in Africa.

I said in the title that the movie was provoking. I believe that this is a movie that is asking all the right questions; Where do we draw the line? Where do the means justify the ends? There is no easy answer, maybe none at all. But I feel that this is an important question and I am happy the Marc has once again bought is back to our movie screens.

The only critic that I feel a need to raise is that it is way to subjective. We are made to believe that the enemy rebels, the LRA, are the ultimate evil force on earth, killing hundreds of thousands. I’m not questioning whether this is true or not. I simply don’t think evil is that simple, that each conflict can be divided into a good side and an evil side. It would be naive to think that cruelty haven’t been done on both sides.

At last, I would like to leave with a quote from Sam Childers: If a terrorist came into your home and abducted one of your family members and I told you I could bring that member home; Does it matter how I do it?

Stephanie Plum (Katherine Heigl), out of work for six months and in desperate need of some income, goes to work for her cousin’s bail bondsman company – for every person she apprehends who has skipped bail she earns 10% of the bail money. So, of course, she goes for the big one – $500,000 bail on disappeared rogue cop Joe Morelli (Jason O’Mara). Not that there is anything personal in it, of course – the fact that Morelli took her virginity in high school and never called her has nothing to do with it. As she pursues Morelli, however, she gets deeper into the reason why he is on the run in the first place.

This film is a most peculiar beast. As the opening credits hit the screen, I noted that it seems to have been made almost exclusively by women – female protagonist, scripted by women, based on a female character in a series of books by a woman, directed by a woman. And it shows. It unfolds on screen exactly as you might expect an action movie made by women to unfold (fumbling in your handbag for your gun being just part of it). There are some horrible mismatches in tone – Plum has a cheery “Oh well” demeanour after a man is blown up by a car bomb meant for her, for instance, and this goes on all the way through – there are some unpleasantly violently moments which jar when set against the mildly comedic tone of the piece overall.

There seems to have been some uncertainty on the part of the makers as to how the movie should be approached. It is a violent crime detective story, told in a very feminine and gently humorous (though not actually very funny) way. I was grateful that the romantic element which threatened to raise its head never actually did.

There is nothing wrong with the story, only with the way it is told. And Plum (played wide-eyed and voluptuous by Katherine Heigl) never really convinces as a character – she isn’t hard enough and she doesn’t learn quickly enough to be credible in this story. Heigl’s screen presence continues to appeal as much as her physical appearance, and she offers more flesh than usual in a fully nude scene (albeit scrunched up in such a position that nothing naughty is on display, and only her squidgy places bulge out from assorted squeezeries. I’m making words up here). I suspect that this scene, and a number of cleavage scenes of the “If you’ve got it, flaunt it” variety, may have been there to reward the male viewers who had been dragged along by their other halfs.

This film is amiable. And I have a feeling that if it had a bit more edge to it, then it would have been less amiable but a better film. And maybe Miss Heigl would have stretched herself a bit, and perhaps even avoided the need to titillate.

I went to see this film this past weekend, mainly because I have not seen a movie at the theater in a while and I am one of the few people who enjoyed the first film. The movie has some stuff going for it, but overall I did not find it as enjoyable as the first film, which may as well not exist as the only thing tying this film to that one is Nicolas Cage. He is back, and in this one he just seems off, acting a bit to crazy for this particular role. Still, he was into the movie which is more than can be said for the rest of the actors and actresses in this one with the exception of Johnny Whitworth as one of the main baddies who I believe turns into Blackout in this film though no mention of the comic book character is made. This is not surprising as a lot of comic book films seem to ignore the villain or hero’s more well known name and instead use the character’s regular birth name. The story in this one has a boy being pursued by Satan, Peter Fonda being replaced by Ciran Hinds which was disappointing to me as I liked Fonda in the first film. Once again the first film seemed to be ignored completely. The boy’s mother had a relationship with one of the men pursuing her and her son and this character is bland and pointless. The only character more pointless is Christopher Lambert’s character who turns up later in the film. Still, the film had a couple of good action scenes to go along with all the drivel used to set up said action sequences. Ghost Rider looked cooler in this film, he is the only one that can be said to look better as the film overall has a cheaper look and feel to it. One can certainly tell the budget was slashed in half here. The parts of the film that were like drawings showing you what was happening to me seemed like a cheap way of getting out of doing the actual scene. Still, it passed the time okay, nothing I am going to rush out to see again mind you. This film is also the first film I have seen in 3D, and I will never watch another film in 3D if I can help it. Really added nothing to the film and it made my eyes feel very strained and weak for a couple of hours afterward. I was afraid of that cause I do have a lazy eye and it is affected by being tired or strained so 3D is just not for me. So a couple of good action scenes and a diversion, but this Ghost Rider, to me, just did not burn as brightly as the first film.

“Easy Money” director Daniel Espinosa’s predictable spy versus spy saga “Safe House” takes its cues from “The Bourne Identity.” The chief difference is Denzel Washington isn’t cast as an amnesiac “Bourne” again hero. Instead, he is a former CIA agent at large who tops Langley’s most wanted list. Like the “Bourne” thrillers, this nimble actioneer concerns corrupt superiors in the CIA who want Denzel dead because he has harmful information about them. Mind you, this isn’t the first time that the CIA has been depicted as corrupt. Movies such as “Three Days of the Condor” and “Scorpio” used that plot back in the early 1970s. Of course, the Agency isn’t corrupt, only the people who fill its upper ranks. When freshman scribe David Guggenheim isn’t forging veils of mystery, Espinosa does his best to captivate us with brief, brutal, and breathless combat scenes in the tradition of the “Bourne” epics. Three-fourths of “Safehouse” depicts people shooting to kill and wielding their fists like cudgels. The heavily armed villains shoot first and shun questions. If you get in the way of these dastards, you die! Any movie where Denzel snaps a guy’s neck in the first quarter-hour and then leaves his corpse in a toilet stall isn’t designed to sell action hero figures. Indeed, nothing about either Denzel or the tenacious thugs blasting away at his heels is light-hearted. “The Green Lantern’s” Ryan Reynolds co-stars with Denzel as a character roughly similar to the guy that Ethan Hawke played opposite Denzel in “Training Day.” This is another of those male mentoring melodramas where an older guy grooms a younger guy for the grimy world of espionage and corruption.

The Central Intelligence Agency has been struggling for years to nab the elusive Tobin Frost (Denzel Washington of “American Gangster”) since he quit their ranks. When he shows up for a rendezvous with a shifty British Intelligence agent, Frost’s enemies miss him, but put a slug in the MI6 man’s skull. Frost scrambles for the safety of the American Embassy where authorities take him into custody. Meanwhile, Matt Weston (Ryan Reynolds) is a gullible, straight-arrow CIA agent champing at the bit for some real action. Matt is a glorified custodian for a safe house who bides his time waiting for an posting as a field agent. Life in Cape Town, South Africa, where Matt is stationed as a ‘housekeeper,’ bores our hero to tears. Despite reassurances from his immediate superior David Barlow (Brendan Gleeson of “The General”), Matt feels like he is caught in a dead-in assignment. When he isn’t supervising the safe house, Matt cavorts with a gorgeous French gal, Ana (Nora Arnezeder of “Paris 36″), and fills her ears with lies about his business. Matt isn’t prepared for Frost’s arrival. He watches with obvious misgivings as a group of ruthless CIA agents, led by Daniel Kiefer (Robert Patrick of “Terminator 2: Judgment Day”), subject Frost to some grueling water-board torture. Kiefer’s men wrangle a few precious moments with Frost before all hell breaks loose. Suddenly, another gang of gunmen burst in and riddle the premises. They kill everybody in sight. Things don’t look promising to Matt who is supposed to protect Frost. Frost persuades Matt to aid and abet him, and Matt learns what a CIA agent has to look forward to in his line of work. Just when everything looks okay for them, and Frost eludes Matt. Indeed, what seems like the entire Cape Town police force are scrambling to capture Matt. Matt’s superiors in Washington are furious. CIA honcho Harlan Whitford (Sam Sheppard of “Black Hawk Down”) not only sends Matt’s boss Barlow to South Africa, but also a snooty, suspicious-looking lady, Catherine Linklater (Vera Farmiga of “The Departed”), who believes that Frost has turned Matt. Ultimately, Matt sets out to not only recapture Frost but also look good in the eyes of his superiors. He isn’t ready for what he learns about either Frost or his superiors.

“Safe House” benefits from on-location lensing in Cape Town. Everything looks real gritty and none of it is familiar. This isn’t the kind of spy thriller that boasts exotic locations, desirable dames, and cool gadgets. Espinosa, Guggenheim, and Washington—who doubles as one of the executive producers—are gunning for realism and they achieve it. Again, the close quarters combat scenes will have you searching for bruises on yourself. Sadly, the surprises the occur throughout “Safe House” aren’t revelations, and the ending seems straight out of “Three Days of the Condor.” “Safe House” isn’t as good as some of Denzel’s earlier films and his shades-of-gray character doesn’t fare too well in the outcome. On the other hand, Ryan Reynolds delivers the strongest performance and emerges as a contender. “Safe House” is best watched as a rental.