Is there anyone who can play charming yet unsettling like Denzel Washington? Even when he’s not playing a legitimate anti-hero, there’s always a vague sense of threat from his characters, in the stillness of his face and the wryness of his delivery.

Washington uses the trademark sociopathy to great affect in “Safe House”, the new spy thriller meant partially to re-charge Ryan Reynolds career after the “Green Lantern” disaster of 2011. Reynolds seems to exist mostly to get out of Washington’s way, the tactic followed by every white guy in a Denzel Washington movie which I like to call the “Ethan Hawke Defense.”

Matt Weston (Reynolds) at the beginning appears to have the un-sexiest job in the CIA, as a keeper of a CIA safe house in Cape Town, South Africa. He spends most of his time listening to French language tapes in an empty room, and telling elaborate lies about his work to his French national girlfriend. His uniquely boring life is upended when Tobin Frost (Washington) a former agent who’s been selling secrets for almost a decade, inexplicably wanders into a U.S. Consulate and allows himself to be captured (the trailer gives you a rough approximation of what will happen next).

Cape Town is shown in gritty, stunning glory, and director Daniel Espinosa makes the best use of location shooting I’ve seen in a long time. The city operates as both an ally and a potential enemy to the two fugitives, from its upscale downtown, to the chaos of Green Point soccer stadium, to the maze of a shanty town. There is very little politics in “Safe House”, but Espinosa doesn’t ignore the realities of Cape Town either, allowing the city to tell the story and add to the sharp realism of the action sequences.

The cat and mouse game at the heart of the story is a little played, and frankly most of it is stolen from other spy movies anyway. But the exquisite little details, ingeniously picked by the director and his stars, allow you to forget that this is a story that’s been told before: a spectacular crane shot of truck barreling through a shanty town’s throughways; the jaunty smile Frost gives when taking pictures of himself to add to a forged passport, the way Weston hugs his girlfriend and buries his face in her hair. The details make this movie special, make it more than just another Saturday-night throwaway picture. Washington’s charming villain is just the cherry on top.

The dark cloud surrounding the NBA lockout is growing larger with every passing day that a deal between the players and owners is not agreed upon. Fans of the sport may have to soon settle into a reality void of professional basketball, where are favorite hardwood stars are scattered throughout the world like pieces on a Risk board.

One way of escaping such a reality might be getting your main fix from the collegiate scene, with the occasional grainy highlight of Kobe Bryant scoring 97 points in an obscure (at least to most NBA diehards) Chinese league. However, if college athletics aren’t your thing, there may be another way to ease through your withdrawals. In order to aid basketball fans in the coping process, I have composed a list of 10 of the greatest basketball movies ever to grace the big screen.

Let the healing begin.

10. The Sixth Man (1997)

I encourage you to begin with this movie, because it will make the rest of this list seem Oscar worthy.

On a more serious note, this might be my favorite movie featuring any one of the dozen Wayans Brothers (minus Blank Man).

On an even more serious note, I actually enjoyed this movie. It is guilty pleasure number one that made it onto my list. Any sports movie that can end with one of the main characters walking off the court to go play for the basketball team in Heaven touches me in ways The Notebook never could.

9. Space Jam (1996)

This is my second guilty pleasure selection, but I am fully prepared to defend its merits. I’ll begin by admitting that I was right in the target demographic when Space Jam first came out, and my judgment might be a little lost in the fog of nostalgia.

However, here is my defense. Space Jam featured the most talented basketball player ever to walk the planet, paired with iconic cartoon characters than spanned multiple generations.

It may be the most accessible, albeit superficial, version of Jordan that fans have ever seen. He lives life with a chip on his shoulder and an unrivaled competitive nature that often manifests itself into a public persona most find off putting. In this movie he was the loveable hero that many fans want him to be.

8. Glory Road (2006)

Although it might get trapped in a familiar framework that surrounds a lot of movies driven by racial tension, it still manages to generate a lot of genuine emotion.

Based on the true story of Texas Western Coach Don Haskins, and his decision to be the first collegiate coach to feature an all black starting line-up, the movie delivers a strong message in the triumphs that take place both on and off the court. Think “Remember the Titans,” if it were to cross over to the hardwood.

7. White Men Can’t Jump (1992)

Seriously, they can’t. Not if the sample size you are using includes Woody Harrelson and myself. Cue Wesley Snipes, in a movie where two basketball hustlers pair up to become more profitable.

There is something special about watching Woody Harrelson, who actually has a pretty natural stroke, and Mr. Snipes wipe the floor with their opponents in comically ugly clothing.

The end of this movie still breaks my heart. Damn you Billy. Damn you.

6. Finding Forrester (2000)

A movie that centers on an unlikely friendship between an aging writer, Sean Connery, and a black youth recruited to a private school for basketball, played by Rob Brown.

Connery and Brown have great chemistry, and I’m a sucker for the duel focus on writing and athletics that propels the movie forward.

It is a flick that is both tense and honest in its delivery, and although basketball may not be the heart of the film, it does involve an impressive display of free throw shooting. I would like to see Rajon Rondo hit five free throws in a row, let alone 50.

Forbes has compiled a list  of the 10 most overpaid actors in Hollywood. The numbers are deduced by the amount of money the stars earned for their past three films in comparison to the overall income for each movie.

The results are as follows:

1. Drew Barrymore
2. Eddie Murphy
3. Will Ferrell
4. Reese Witherspoon
5. Denzel Washington
6. Nicolas Cage
7. Adam Sandler
8. Vince Vaughn
9. Tom Cruise
10. Nicole Kidman

“Unstoppable” is a movie that begs for catchy pull quotes in its trailer.

I mean, come on, it’s a movie about a runaway train. There are so many metaphors I could utilize; obviously with caps lock and copious exclamation points. I could write

something like “NON-STOP action thrill-ride!” “This locomotive delivers the goods!” “Hop on the Denzel Train and hit the accelerator!”

At the risk of sounding like sucker, I’ll admit all the stuff I just wrote is kind of true. Because this was more than just a movie about a runaway train, it’s a well-acted, well-plotted and well-filmed movie about a runaway train. Starring Chris Pine. If that ain’t praiseworthy, what is?

The train in question was set off not by a terrorist or a crazed train operator, but by a more commonplace threat: people making stupid mistakes. After being sent off without a driver, carrying a load of extremely flammable materials, the train company scrambles to chase it down and stop it before it crashes in a highly populated area.

Meanwhile Frank (Denzel Washington) and Will (Pine) are riding on the same rail, having somehow missed the message that there’s a train coming on full speed directly at them. It’s totally cool though, because Frank is played by Denzel Washington, and knows exactly what to do, with the help of newbie Will and train depot middle manager Connie (Rosario Dawson).

It’s an absurd concept, but director Tony Scott handles the material with a surprising amount of restraint. His movie is a study of a little-seen industry, one based on sheer muscle, grit and rare American ingenuity. Between scenes with Frank and Will jumping on moving train cars and talking about Frank’s daughters working their way through college at Hooters are truly depressing; scenes of the train company’s corporate monkeys sitting in a high-rise and discussing whether it costs less to derail the train in the countryside, or blow it up in a small town. Sure it’s a little cliché, but that doesn’t make it any less true.

The movie is also about scale and noise. Scott includes shots of the trains, with their larger than life sounds and astonishing size the way other action film directors use gratuitous explosions. They’re huge, anxiety-producing and verge on the pornographic. Scott hikes the sense of panic up almost imperceptibly throughout the movie, until by the time you’re watching Pine dive in between to moving train cars to cable them together you’re holding your hands in front of your eyes without realizing it. In the climactic scene, as they round an impossibly sharp corner surrounded by flammable oil (yes, really) I can’t lie; I was on the edge of my seat.

Washington is the glue that make this piece of madness work. He’s almost lackadaisical in his delivery, funny and charming; you get the feeling he was having a blast making this movie. Together he and Pine are basically reenacting their actual roles in Hollywood: Washington as the older veteran, and Pine as the young upstart nipping at his predecessor’s heels, and their dual scenes are surprisingly snappy and fun. Rosario Dawson is also lovely and terrific as ever, acting the hell out of a very limited role.

After going to see this movie I thought about Lumiere’s public screening of “The Arrival of a Train in La Ciotat Station” in 1896. The legend goes that the French public was so astonished by watching a moving image of a train, apparently speeding right toward them, it made them flee the screening, running frightened into the Paris night. I wonder if they’d had trailers back then what they would have said. “This train is on FIRE! You’ll want to run from the shadowy force of MAN-MADE STEEL heading directly for your FACE!!”

“Unstoppable” proves that more than 100 years after Lumiere scared the hell out of those Parisians, and even with our jaded, experienced eyes, the movies we watch can still make our hearts race, can still get our adrenaline zooming through our lizard brains. That feeling is still well worth the price of admission.

“The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3″ starts with John Travolta standing on a New York street corner with an “I’m going to shoot some people” look on his face, a “Live to Die” tattoo on his neck, strutting to a new-metal remix of Jay-Z’s “99 Problems.” The movie gets better, but not by a whole lot.

“Taking of Pelham 1 2 3″ is a remake of the 1974 Walter Matthau drama about a group of armed men, led by the smooth talking Ryder (Travolta) who holds the passengers of a New York City subway car hostage and demands $10 million for their release. The responsibility of conversing with Ryder falls upon the organizational guru of the New York Transit Authority Walter Garber (Denzel Washington), who attempts to negotiate with Ryder without falling into any traps that he may be holding.

The plot progresses: Garber’s got a secret to hide, turns out that the money demands are just the tip of the iceberg for the scheme, the incompetent mayor (James Gandolfini) drops the ball more than once with some bloody results. It’s a clear cut crime drama with a straight-as-an-arrow plot and a by-the-numbers stand off between good and evil.

The movie isn’t bad, it’s mostly just insubstantial. The taking of the train happens during the opening credits, Garber is introduced to Ryder within the first fifteen minutes, and there’s never much of a break in between. The whole movie falls on Travolta and Washington’s dialogue to carry it, which most of the time it does. There are times when Travolta can’t quite pull of the tough guy lines (“Tell him to come down here and lick my bunghole”) but when the two hit their stride they can go from funny to intense with seamless effort. The other stars in the movie such as Gandolfini, John Turturro and Luis Guzman play such bit parts that they can’t be called good or bad.

The movie’s real suffering comes with the lack of side character development. Through out the movie we are introduced to some side characters mostly made up of the train hostages. There’s the young man who has his girlfriend on the phone when he is taken hostage, the son and mother duo, the ex-marine, and some others that have their one or two lines of development. The problem with these characters is they make no difference to the story. They seem to be there to fill in an extra 10 minutes and then stay out of the plot for the rest of the time. This is a real problem for a move that is mainly based around a hostage situation, when we don’t know or care all that much about the people who are in danger.

“Pelham 1 2 3″ is a bare bones kind of movie. It runs an hour and 46 minutes, and there’s not a lot of breathing room to get bored though there’ aren’t many scenes that will knock you out. I would suggest it if you are a fan of such one on one acting flicks like “Collateral” and “Training Day” because all that is good in the movie comes from Travolta and Washington bouncing off each other. Other than that, you could wait for the DVD and not be all that disappointed you didn’t spend the cash to see it in theaters.

It’s that time again. Shoot an e-mail to schwartz.t@blastmagazine.com for an opportunity to get a free pass to “The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3.” There are only 10 passes, and they are first come first serve, so send on over those e-mails.

In “The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3,” Denzel Washington stars as New York City subway dispatcher Walter Garber, whose ordinary day is thrown into chaos by an audacious crime: the hijacking of a subway train. John Travolta stars as Ryder, the criminal mastermind who, as leader of a highly-armed gang of four, threatens to execute the train’s passengers unless a large ransom is paid within one hour. As the tension mounts beneath his feet, Garber employs his vast knowledge of the subway system in a battle to outwit Ryder and save the hostages. But there’s one riddle Garber can’t solve: even if the thieves get the money, how can they possibly escape?

“The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3″ hits theaters June 12.