Time to set your stop watches for 2 hours and 9 minutes, Denzel returns as the high level government assassin, and this time he is pissed. Well a more controlled type of pissed I suppose. When one of his colleagues and best friends from the agency is found dead in a hotel room, Denzel Washington as Robert McCall makes it his personal mission to find the ones behind her murder. Only to discover that it is one of his own who had ordered the hit.
After really enjoying the first Equalizer movie, I was pumped when I first saw the trailer for the sequel, and had put it on my movies to go see list for this summer. In the opening scene on the train, after just a few minutes of dialogue followed by a calculated ass whooping by McCall, I could tell that the Equalizer 2 would be very much like the first movie. Considering how much I loved the first one, that was anything but a bad thing. In the first film, the Equalizer worked as a hardware store employee by day, assassin by night. But he would kill only the ones who caused him or others any distress, like a guardian angel more than a killer.
He’s like a superhero but with no powers or even fancy tech like Batman or Ironman. He relies on the skills that the CIA has taught him, and from experience. In fight scenes he uses anything around him as a weapon, especially if outnumbered which is always. In the Equalizer 2, McCall hung his Home Depot apron and is now a driver for Lift.
I like the part where he confronts those guys in the apartment that dumped a drugged college girl in his car. He calmly tries to reason with them before acting, but when the one guy invites him inside and then locks the door, McCall sets that stop watch of his and does what he does best. After thoroughly teaching those boys a lesson in respect, McCall tells the one guy still standing “you better give me a five-star review”. All before breaking his fingers and going back to his Lift car to find a five-star review pop up on the nav screen.
In the film, McCall befriends a young aspiring artist/wannabe gang-banger named Miles, of whom he ties to teach him not to get involved with the wrong crowd. The relationship with them has a definite father and son dynamic. The father teaching the son life lessons while the son disregards most of them and takes it as McCall telling him what to do. It’s a struggle that most families have, and even though not family, McCall and Miles sure behave like it at times.
The Equalizer 2 was definitely one of the best summer movies this year. Although I still prefer the first film to the sequel, it was awesome to finally see a follow-up film after 4 years of waiting. And after watching the final scene, I believe that this isn’t the last we will see of Robert McCall aka the Equalizer. Perhaps he will read more books beyond the 100 that he promised himself and his deceased wife to finish. Guess We’ll see.
Nerdish Rating
4 out 5
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