Safe House

Safe House is a 1998 American independent thriller film directed by Eric Steven Stahl and starring Patrick Stewart, Kimberly Williams, and Héctor Elizondo. It premiered in the United Kingdom in late 1998 on Channel 5 and in the United States on Showtime on January 24, 1999. Plot Mace Sowell is a retired DIA agent who believes his life is in danger from his former boss, Admiral Thomas Michelmore, who is now running for President of the United States. Mace has information about the underhand dealings of his erstwhile boss at the DIA which would ruin his Presidential campaign if it ever was released into the public domain. The information is located in cyberspace and is scheduled to be sent to every major newspaper in the western world unless Mace reprograms the mail server remotely from his computer every 24 hours using a special password only he knows. To complicate the issue, Mace is in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease and has difficulty in convincing people his information is not paranoia as a result of his condition. He only leaves his home in disguise and visits his psychiatrist Dr. Simon under duress from his daughter Michelle, who threatens to have his mental competency evaluated. Because Mace never discussed his career in the DIA with his family and also because paranoia is a common symptom of Alzheimer's disease, Mace is unable to convince Simon or Michelle of the truth of the threat he faces. Simon suggests to Michelle that she either hire an in-home caregiver for Mace or have him committed if his behavior becomes too much to handle. Following a difficult search, Michelle hires Andi Travers, whom Mace is immediately hostile toward. Their relationship is fraught at first as she tries to convert Mace to a macrobiotic diet, and Andi in turn is angered by Mace's invasion of her privacy as part of his background check, which arouses no suspicion. Mace has few friends apart from Stu, a man who cleans his pool and does other odd jobs for him. Stu tells Andi that he has known Mace since before the onset of his mental degeneration. Amongst the jobs Stu carries out for Mace are drills — training exercises whereby Stu dresses up in quasi-military gear and balaclavas and simulates breaking into Mace's house and attacking him. Stu does this more out of friendship and lack of anything better to do than because he believes Mace's claims about being under threat.