Equalizer 2

I’m always a little embarrassed to review a film like this, which I have to call a guilty pleasure. I guess it began way back with Death Wish, a “super-violent” film that looks pretty tame and quaint these days. People like to deplore these films, and they will get no argument from me. They are dreadful, ugly, blood-soaked exercises in vigilante violence. And, in the right mood, I can really enjoy them. It’s just so satisfying to see the very, very, very bad guys get their butts kicked, usually fatally, by somebody who really knows how to kick butt. This is an average entry in this genre, and I was in the right mood, and I enjoyed it. Which is not a recommendation. Your reaction might be quite different.

Denzel Washington makes a great Equalizer. The inspiration for this, and for the first one, goes back to 1985, a TV series starring Edward Woodward as a retired operative of some sort who now hires out to protect people who are being threatened by nasty bastards. We watched some of them recently, and they are still good, but not nearly so violent.