The Equalizer 2: A tepid lame self-justice drama

Starring Denzel Washington, Melissa Leo

Directed by Anoine Fuqua

Rating: ** ½ (2 and a half stars)

When all fails there is Robert McCall. The impressively distinguished Denzel Washington stars as a former Intelligence agent whom you can approach to get justice done when all legal channel fails. Decades after Charles Bronson espoused vigilantism the cult of instant justice seems to be back in both Bollywood and Hollywood (Satyameva Jayate, Peppermint).

At a time when mob lynching and other signs of a society on the brink of anarchic justice are prevalent, it is no pleasure watching Washington weed out the scum with his holier-than-thou artillery.

The Equalizer 2 which comes four years after the first film is no fun to watch. It’s glum tired over-the-hill actioner with little action and plenty of misguided wrath. Washington plays the vigilante with the righteous attitude of a Gandhian philosopher who thinks a cheek for a cheek must now be upgraded to a shriek for a shriek.

The stench of I-know-best doesn’t quite work in the script or the leading man’s favour. The flashpoint , if we may call it that , comes when McCall’s former associate and lifelong friend Susan (Melissa Leo) is murdered. The unraveling of the whodunnit is more an exercise in who-cares-whodunit .

Dirty government officers dealing out a sordid treatment to unsuspecting citizens is no more fodder for a flaming-hit thriller. Equalizer 2 is a tepid lame self-justice drama with its lead scowling his way through a plot that admittedly leaves him little room for joy. There is a growing relationship between McCall and a young artistic black boy Miles (Ashton Sanders) that needed to be explored more deeply. The film’s only gripping moments have Miles hiding from the baddies in McCall’s home .But this whole chunk of suspense is shot like an ‘item’ to liven up the dead proceedings.

A film of this nature where the heroics are fastened to a fast-falling Establishment that resorts to every ugly trick in the crimebook, needed to be far better structured and crafted. Lazy writing and uninspired plot twists make The Equalizer 2 a deathly-still bore, albeit with some redeeming moments.