Denzel Washington strikes again.

Rating: 8/10 (17 March 2005)

This movie is ultimately, in my possibly not so humble opinion, about love. While I suppose the film could be seen as a sinister thing, I think to focus only on the destruction this film mounts would be a mistake: to the contrary, it is the darkness which makes the brightness so much more blinding, a study in the differences between destruction and construction.
I saw the film as a portrait - and a touching one at that. While there was no small measure of violence here, I found the violence not at all gratuitous. I was interested that another viewer saw the film as a throwback to an era when vengeance was cool: It was my impression that the director, or script, or actors, or whatever combination of these conspired to make the film what it was, invite the audience to draw its own conclusions about the place of vengeance in the world, rather than painting it in either strictly glorious or strictly ugly shades: it approached the complexity of life and the essence of love, it painted them in gentle hues on the screen, and then walked away to let them be.