The Equalizer 2 (2018)
Directed by Antoine Fuqua
Robert McCall, who serves an unflinching justice for the exploited and oppressed, embarks on a relentless, globe-trotting quest for vengeance when his former partner is murdered.
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7 films that influenced The Equalizer 2
What critics say influenced The Equalizer 2
Ultimately, "The Equalizer's" theatrical incarnation offers a reminder that the movies have always been fascinated with modern-day cowboys who clean up new frontiers, whether that's Dirty Harry or, more recently, Liam Neeson's "Taken" trilogy.
The Equalizer 2 never comes close to the delicious highs of like-minded flicks like Taken or John Wick, but Fuqua does improve upon the sloppy, poorly lit squabbles of the original.
Judging by the ponderous tone and pace, Fuqua thinks he’s making high art (likely aspiring to something existential like Jean-Pierre Melville’s “Le Samouraï”), but this is a grisly exploitation movie at best.
“I don’t deserve this, to die like this,” pleaded Gene Hackman’s villainous Little Bill Daggett in the 1992 Western Unforgiven.
One unwelcome carry over from the first film is the rather silly Sherlock Holmes (Downey Jr. and Cumberbatch iterations) pre-fight deduction sequences.
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The final showdown at the abandoned and hurricane-ravaged beach town where McCall once lived with his long ago dead wife is drawn out and psychologically strange: it feels like The Gunfight at the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Corral .
Let’s review: Back in 2000, he made Bait, featuring Jamie Foxx as a hustler who outwits both the feds and the criminal underworld.
The Equalizer 2 never comes close to the delicious highs of like-minded flicks like Taken or John Wick, but Fuqua does improve upon the sloppy, poorly lit squabbles of the original.