When we last left Robert McCall (Denzel Washington), he had killed the shit out of the entire Boston-based Russian mafia in order to save teen prostitute Chloë Grace Moretz and his co-workers at a Home Depot knock-off. It was an update of the 1980s TV show that would have done Edward Woodward—the original McCall, himself a bad-ass, just with an English accent—proud. Washington, director Antoine Fuqua and screenwriter Richard Wenk return for the sequel, and despite the similar cool gadgetry and Denzel’s blend of humor and cat-toying-with-doomed-mouse energy—there’s even a wayward youth he has to protect, well played by Ashton Sanders—nothing here seems quite as dangerous. Perhaps that’s because his enemies this go-around are a bunch of old CIA buddies and not the Russian mob. In this day and age I’d be more worried about the Russian mob. That doesn’t mean there isn’t some fun and some good killin’, with McCall dispatching more than one person with knives (yeesh). But there’s something too predictable about McCall wasting a bunch of people who’ve crossed him. Don’t they know he’s smarter and better-trained than they are?
By
David Riedel