Washington's Waterboarding Scene Sucker Punch Free

Conservatives will start rolling their eyes early on in the new movie “Safe House.”

Denzel Washington stars as a rogue CIA agent who turns himself in to U.S. authorities, and before you can say “human rights abuse” his character undergoes a waterboarding treatment.

Had “Safe House” come out five years ago, the scene might have included jabs at the Bush administration, the War on Terror or both. Likely both. Instead, the scene arrives and leaves without any sermonizing to lessen the moment’s impact.

We’re supposed to learn that Washington’s character, the colorfully named Tobin Frost, is a certifiable bad-ass, and that the information he possesses is critically important to the story. And that’s it.

Nice.

Left unsaid is the notion that if an Oscar winner like Washington is willing to be waterboarded for a movie, perhaps the technique isn’t as torturous as Bush critics once claimed it to be?