In a conventional shoot-‘em-up, the protagonists deliver snide quips while dispatching dozens of bad guys in gory fashion. The “action hero who walked away from his old life” narrative trope also has a handy moral escape clause - for the filmmakers, as well as the audience. In a sense, a film like The Equalizer 2 is an elaborate action-movie humble brag: This isn’t even my job, but I’m just so good at it. Washington, who turns 64 in December, is certainly part of that ilk, but The Equalizer 2 aims for a more sophisticated tone, draping the proceedings in somber underpinnings as McCall glumly goes about his grisly business. In recent years, we’ve seen a wave of “geri-action” movies (including Taken and the Expendables franchise) that cater to older guys who don’t want to think they’ve lost a step. For one, it plays into a romantic notion that a lot of men indulge - the idea that, hey, they’ve still got it. There are a few reasons for the enduring appeal of this deeply disingenuous subgenre. It’s never the character’s choice, mind you - it’s always some terrorist or rogue agent who ruins everything. Just kidding: Those films (and plenty of others) use the conceit of the main character “who walked away from his old life” as a precursor to finding a way for the hero, oh-so-reluctantly, to pick that sword back up. Will Sawyer, Dwayne Johnson’s Skyscraper hero, used to be in the FBI, but after losing a leg in a blown operation, he now works in security, telling a colleague ponderously at one point, “I put my sword down” - a farewell to his ass-kicking past.Īs we all recall, Taken and Skyscraper were muted, intimate G-rated dramas that concerned the tranquil adventures of reformed men who were now happily non-violent.
Bryan Mills, Liam Neeson’s Taken hero, used to be in the CIA - now he does security so he can be closer to his daughter. The Equalizer films are part of a proud tradition of movies involving awesome enforcer/hitman types who, for character reasons, don’t choose to pursue the line of work they’re really good at. He doesn’t want to kill people! Circumstances just keep forcing him to.
#EQUALIZER 2 DRIVER#
He kills so many people in The Equalizer - and he gets to kill a whole bunch more in The Equalizer 2, where McCall is minding his own business as a Lyft driver before being compelled to avenge the murder of his close friend (Melissa Leo), a fellow agent. Soon enough, though, he gets a chance to show off his old skills, protecting an innocent prostitute (Chloë Grace Moretz) from deadly Russian gangsters. And so, in the 2014 original ( based on the 1980s series), McCall is working at a Home Depot, a seemingly ordinary dude who is, in fact, a superhuman killing machine.
His reason? He promised his wife before she died that he would. In The Equalizer 2, Denzel Washington once again plays Robert McCall, a former CIA operative who walked away from his old life.
0 kommentar(er)
