What made the Oscar winner Denzel Washington excited to make his debut in a sequel in an illustrious career spanning almost 40 years?!!. It’s a puzzle. And what happens when the dedicated actor gives his cent percent only to find the plot and other things associated with it, pulling the carpet again and again under his feet.
THE EQUALIZER – the 2014 American vigilante action thriller by Antoine Fuqua, loosely based on the 1980s TV series of the same name had nothing to shout about, the violent action saw bad guys doing very bad things to the to the good people while cops turned a blind eye and a messiah like any one of our Bollywood action legends in Denzel Washington coming for rescue.
Staying true to its predecessor, THE EQUALIZER 2 has nothing to add to the cliché premise; Washington is back as Robert McCall. He is still the messiah, working as a friendly Lyft driver and rescuing the common man and woman from gangsters. Robert’s friend his CIA buddy Susan (Melissa Leo) goes missing and things take expected turns. Robert teams up with another pal Dave (Pedro Pascal) to nab the assailants of Susan and find out the reason behind all this and we wonder why nothing exciting apart from the opening train sequence is there in this near two hours of mediocrity.
Undoubtedly, Denzel Washington is the ideal brand ambassador for the last action hero, the veteran is in top gear. All that good virtues of honesty and simplicity define the character of Robert McCall he is cool as an individual and brutal when it comes to destroy our common enemy but director Fuqua shows signs of desperation in making things more cool then it actually is and fails.
There is head banging, bashing, slicing and all but the impact is not at par, in the end it’s a Denzel Washington starrer we are watching not a regular dish dash doom of good v/s evil that can be done by any adrenaline junkie.
(A suggestion – not asked for but still, THE EQUALIZER 2 is a testimony that proves why Stallone’s RAMBO, Client Eastwood’s DIRTY HARRY and our own Sunny Paaji’s GHAYAL have remain favorites)
