Safe Haven Movie Review – I’m officially a Nicholas Sparks Fan! #SafeHaven

Warning: This post contains major spoilers!

I’ve never really been a fan of the romantic movie genre. I’ve never seen a Nicholas Sparks movie. I know, I know, I’m a pathetic excuse for a 30-something woman…

So, while I am not really a mushy, romantic movie-goer, I am a gigantic fan of Josh Duhamel. So of course I was going to go see Josh Duhamel in Save Haven! I went to a special early screening so that I could write a Safe Haven movie review during opening weekend. And since Angeline wanted to go see it too, so we made a date to see it the night before Valentine’s Day.

Safe Haven opened in theaters yesterday, February 14, with a wonderful cast that includes: Josh Duhamel, Julianne Hough, David Lyons, and Cobie Smulders.

Safe Haven is based on the novel from Nicholas Sparks, the best-selling author behind the hit films The Notebook and Dear John. The story begins with Katie boarding a bus in a state of panic, with police chasing after her. She gets off the bus in a tiny little seaside town and as the audience is shown a few flashbacks of the event that led up to her getting on that bus, she settles into her new home.

Part of that “settling in” includes meeting Alex, who of course, begins to woo her almost immediately!

Alex is widowed with two young children and owns the local market at the marina. His daughter becomes immediately attached to Katie, and it’s clear right from the beginning that the two are going to end up together!

Though oddly enough, Katie is very hesitant to get involved with Alex. We see several nights where Katie wakes up after having nightmares about whatever it was she was fleeing from – but it is never truly clear what happened that night!

As Katie begins to date Alex and become more involved in his and the children’s lives, we see the police officer who was searching for her at the bus station that night performing and investigation to track her down. We are led to believe that Katie is wanted for first degree murder, and the entire audience gasped when he put out an APB with her photo and the police department in her new hometown tacks her posted up on the wall!

Now, at this point, we see Katie’s neighbor, Jo, spending quite a bit of time with her. I noticed that it seemed Jo never invited Katie over to her house. What’s up with that? I’ll tell ya later!

As Katie and Alex become more attached, their relationship begins to progress. While we watch them go on a canoe ride and romantic dinners, we see the police officer in another city becoming more and more frantic in his search to locate Katie – even going so far as to break into her old house!

And that’s when the pieces of the puzzle slowly come together! The police officer is Katie’s estranged husband. Her abusive, alcoholic husband. As it turns out, he was doing all of that research trying to find her outside of the law – and he ended up suspended without pay when his Sargent found out what he was doing!

Just as Katie becomes comfortable and gives herself over to the idea of making a new start with Alex and his family, guess who shows up waving a gun around?

Yep. The crazy husband! While Alex and his son Josh are out watching fireworks, Katie’s husband moves in for the kill – literally! After dousing Alex’s market with gasoline, Katie is able to talk him out of setting it on fire and throws him into the water. We assume he is down for the count…

Meanwhile, a spark from the fireworks display ignites the gasoline on the deck of the market and poor Lexy is stuck upstairs with no way to escape! Alex comes to her rescue as quickly as he can and scrambles to get her down from the second story window. Of course, at that exact time, the crazy husband jumps out of nowhere and he and Katie begin struggling with his gun.

The entire theater was on the edge of our seats as he tried to force the gun to Katie’s head! Luckily, Katie is able to prevent him from aiming at her when he pulls the trigger.

Lexy is safe, Katie is safe, and the next scene shows that the market is already being rebuilt.

There’s a little bit of a surprise ending revolving around Katie’s friend, Jo…but I’ll leave that for you to discover for yourself when you see Safe Haven at the theater!

You can watch this Meet the Safe Haven Family clip right here or watch it on YouTube and share via your social media channels!

Now, like I said, I’m not really a fan of romance movies. But…I actually enjoyed it so much that I wanted to write this Safe Haven movie review – I think it’s my first romantic movie review! I found the story interesting and while I did think that the characters could have been further developed (like how long did “Katie’s” husband abuse her before she ran away?), the story moved along naturally and Katie and Alex’s love story was sweet and endearing.

Safe Haven is showing in theaters nationwide, Angeline and I recommend that you go see it!