Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
Director: Antoine Fuqua, Netflix
Starring in his first sequel, Oscar-winner Denzel Washington (Glory, Training Day, The Equalizer, Philadelphia) is ex-CIA agent-turned-vigilante Robert McCall.
However, Washington doesn’t like calling it a ‘sequel’. Instead, he refers to it as a “story without an ending and it’s open-ended, so here we are”.
The action-packed drama finds McCall working as a Lyft driver whose life is uprooted when his long-time friend and former colleague Susan Plummer (Melissa Leo) is killed while investigating a political hit job in Brussels. He uses his deadly skills to avenge the death. Now out for vengeance, McCall takes on a crew of highly trained assassins who stop at nothing to destroy him.
If you have a problem and there is nowhere else to turn, the elusive, mysterious and indefinable McCall delivers justice by taking the law into his own hands. Seemingly unassuming, he has a particular set of skills he deploys on anyone who crosses his path or that of his acquaintances.
He fills his days by driving, patiently watching and listening to passengers and those around him, two people in particular. One is a doddering old-timer in his neighborhood and the other is a local boy Miles (Moonlight star Ashton Sanders) who he tries to put off gang life. McCall is trying to leave behind a better world than the one he entered, while repainting a graffitied wall of his building and urging Miles to choose paths in life that are not sullied.
In reality, McCall is pursing something unpleasant, unsavoury and swift – revenge.
Plenty of bones are broken and other ghastly stuff.
The Equalizer 2 again pairs director Antoine Fuqua (The Equalizer, Training Day, re-maker of The Magnificent Seven) with Washington, who has made better acting choices in the past.
