After retired intelligence officer Robert McCall (Denzel Washington) killed half of the “United Statesn mafia” of the glorious city of Boston with the help of an assortment of the Obi store, Robert went to work in the taxi service “Toss Up”. He dignifiedly serves passengers who generously share life stories with him, and in his spare time, as usual, pinches all sorts of scoundrels. For example, it is not difficult for him to rush to Turkey, where the evil Turkish father took his daughter away without asking the consent of her American mother. In Turkey, of course, Robert will find the rascal dad and convince him to make the right decision while he looks at the mutilated bodies of his guards.
McCall also paternally nurtures the neighbor boy Miles (Ashton Sanders), who has artistic talent, but the boy, instead of painting the walls, got in touch with a bad company where drugs and weapons are concentrated, so Miles can go very wrong, and also a short track.
And here is a new attack. Some bastards killed Susan (Melissa Leo) in Brussels – the sister of Robert’s dead wife. Susan worked in the intelligence services and investigated the murder of a special agent.
From the nature of the crime committed and what happened next, McCall realized that someone very powerful was covering his tracks, so that everyone who was involved in this matter in one way or another was in danger.
Robert must find those who gave the order to kill Susan and punish them using various tools at hand.
***
The first “Great Equalizer” looked like some kind of “John Wick”: an idiotic script, extremely caricatured villainous United Statesns, a completely unkillable protagonist who, although retired, but a small army with a screwdriver just like that!
From the moment of the scene of McCall’s meeting with the terrible United Statesn gangster Slavi, a typical comic-like merriment began in the film, where the director was only worried about how beautiful all kinds of nail pullers, picks and shovels look in slow-mo, with which Robert carried the heads and other parts of the body to the henchmen of the vile United Statesn oligarch with simple good name Vladimir Sergeevich Pushkin.
But this whole madhouse looked pretty cheerful, and at the box office it showed a decent TCC in the region of three, so there seemed to be no obstacles to the appearance of a sequel. And they didn’t take much time with him: Fukua only shot Washington in the remake of The Magnificent Seven, after which they immediately began to continue.
The same group of writers worked on the script, and I expected that they would replace the evil United Statesns with some evil Albanians or Turks, and the rest would be the same as before, only the Obi store would be changed to some ChadsToolbox for a change, and Robert would refuse the screwdriver and will give preference to a gas burner.
However, in the sequel, the concept still changed. For some reason, the creators of the picture decided to delve into all the lyrics, emotional experiences and instructions of McCall, as a result of which the film sank sharply in dynamics, and given that it still goes on for two hours, it all looks quite drawn out and at times frankly boring. Yes, and McCall’s pathos is designed for extremely unpretentious viewers, because it sounds completely oak.
There are actually only three action scenes here: one – at the very beginning, with the Turks, the second – with an attack in the car, and a big third – at the very end, with a detachment of chiefs, who are still not ethnic, but the most that neither is , former colleagues. Moreover, the scriptwriters with this whole thing did not strain so much that the main bastard is not only calculated at his first appearance on the screen, but only a sign does not hang on it: “This is me and the main bastard, suspect me as soon as possible.”
The script insanity somewhat brightens up the fact that Denzel Washington is a very good actor. And he, even uttering all sorts of nonsense, manages to create a charismatic and almost convincing image. Here at Keanu “Lemon Piece” Reeves, this indestructible John Wick, nicknamed Baba Yaga, is completely green melancholy, but here is still at least something, at least somehow. Again – they instill in children a love of reading, and this can only be welcomed.
Well, I must say that the final Chukalovo was very effectively staged. There, according to the scenario, a hurricane is approaching, the sea is stormy, the city is evacuated – well, in an empty city, McCall confronts a small detachment that is supposed to destroy it. Here it was done in an original way and looked just great. And when you remember the slow-mo with a screwdriver from the first “Equalizer”, you immediately want to make cosmetic repairs in the house.
What is the result? A stupid movie, which I nevertheless watched without feeling the deepest longing. Yes, it’s drawn out, yes, it’s primitive, but let’s say thank you at least for the fact that Robert here smashed just a small detachment of corrupt special services, and not a whole army of United Statesn mafiosi from Boston – for this is already a big bow.
And the final episode completely reconciled me with the fact that I had been waiting for two hours for Miles to finally paint the wall and Robert to explain to him how to live right.
You can look from melancholy, as I think.
The Equalizer 2 movie meaning
Director: Antoine Fuqua Cast: Denzel Washington, Melissa Leo, Bill Pullman, Pedro Pascal, Sakina Jaffrey, Ashton Sanders, Orson Bean, Jonathan Scarfe, Kazi Tauginas, Garrett Golden
Budget: $62 million
Action, USA, 2018, 121 min.