Your bag is empty.
Denzel Washington hunts down lowlifes, sleazes and bullies, then rips them a new one. Deep down in the deeply superficial The Equalizer 2, that’s pretty much the extent of the red-meat appeal of this and the original 2014 movie starring the venerable Washington. For the first time in his long career, the Oscar winner—for unfathomable reasons known only to himself and his handlers—has opted to repeat his Taken-ish role of a broody, middle-aged ex-special ops vigilante, that ass-kicking blue-collar Boston do-gooder and widower Robert McCall.
In The Equalizer, McCall toiled at Home Depot. But having left that big-box outlet in ruins in the gaga finale of the first film, this time he’s on the down-low, driving. Not to worry, though—he’s still a one-man, superhero Robin Hood-meets-Batman with plenty of time for bonding with a Holocaust survivor (Orson Bean) over a missing painting, and mentoring an artistically promising at-risk kid (Moonlight’s Ashton Sanders, doing wonders with a skeletal role). As for getting down to equalizing, McCall thrashes a bunch of scummy finance-industry dudes who’ve sexually assaulted and dumped a young intern, rescuing a young American girl from a scary fate to get her back from Turkey to good old U.S. of A.
In our era of a-holes cruising for a bruising but rarely getting one—armies of angry, racist, sexist internet tough guys; tiki torch-wielding white supremacists; White House traitors and colluders, and spineless politicians on both sides of the aisle unwilling to do a damn thing about any of it—The Equalizer 2 sounds like a much-welcomed lizard-brain wish-fulfillment flick. The audience gets to cheer and applaud every punch, kick, atrocity, shoot-out, explosion and bloodbath. After all, our hero—just like Dirty Harry, Death Wish and other right-wing favorites—is causing mayhem for the best of reasons.
But as directed by Washington favorite Antoine Fuqua (Training Day, The Equalizer, The Magnificent Seven) and scripted by Richard Wenk (Jack Reacher: Never Go Back)—very loosely based on the 1980s TV crime drama that starred Edward Woodward—this sequel peters out its storehouse of angry, festering energy and devolves into an overly complicated, moderately interesting whodunit involving one of McCall’s old associates (Melissa Leo, oddly muted). The whole thing plays out so slowly and piles on the bogus gravitas so heavily that, like the book-loving, eternally grieving McCall, we viewers have too much damn time to think and mull over its absurdities.
As tough and righteous an avenging angel as he is, does this bone-cruncher posses some freaky superhuman powers and extra senses that inevitably lead him straight to the oppressed and crapped-upon? Does he possess an intergalactic black belt and instant-recovery capabilities that explain how he lays waste to an entire hotel room full of creeps, and emerges ready for more? Who knew that Lyft tips were so lush that our hero can skip town at a moment’s notice, then leave trails of broken and bleeding baddies all across Brussels, Turkey, Washington and, in the finale, a posh, hurricane-evacuated East Coast Martha’s Vineyard-ish vacation community?
Some might call Denzel Washington’s performance gracefully minimalist.
No matter the script contrivance or the embarrassment, the compelling Washington plays his rough justice specialist as stoic, authoritarian, gentlemanly and quietly powerful. He barely raises his voice or breaks a sweat. Some might call Washington’s performance gracefully minimalist.
But the role is so damn noble, so lacking in complexity or shading, that McCall is also a bit of a snooze, and the tired, slow-burn movie around him, weighing in at bloated 125 minutes, is almost as punishing to an audience as McCall is to his prey. Denzel Washington deserves better than The Equalizer 2, but he chose to make it. Jeez, what’d we do to deserve it?