A great action film that shows Denzel Washington can still be a huge action star

Rating: 8/10 (1 October 2014)

With Denzel Washington getting older it could be argued that this would have been a problem for his action career but I must say he is in great condition and I want to see more films with Denzel in roles like this. This film sees Robert McCall a man who gave up a life of action to be a normal human being thrust into action when he feels he must help a young girl from Russian mobsters. Now this is a fantastic performance by Denzel as he totally owns this character, he is the nicest person in the world but he is great when having to turn it completely to that dark side of his character. This film is his and he owns it with his common man action star persona really working for this film. I do believe that the supporting cast is a bit light on detailed characters, this is evident by Chloe grace moretz performance. I think this is completely different to everything she has done and she does it really well, however, she isn't in the film a lot and I do believe that she was underutilised. One thing I did like in this film is that they had a clear villain who they put against McCall and the guy they got to play Teddy did a good job in the role. However, like a lot of action films these days it does lack some other detailed supporting characters which is a bit of a disappointment for this film as I believe it had the potential to have more in depth side characters. The story is a mixed bag, I like the character of McCall and his reasoning for doing certain things and the reasoning behind things seems realistic. But the slower scenes do drag a little bit and towards the end of the film you do wonder why he is still doing what he is doing. The script is great McCall is exactly as I would have wanted him to be and that is what really is the driving force for this film. The style of this film is also really cool there are some people who say it is to artistic but I don't buy that at all. The director Antoine Fuqua really did a good job of coming up with creative kills as well which is great for the audience. This film is going to get some comparisons to Taken, but I think this is a bit of a slower film and more of a realistic thriller and I do like both but I think comparing this film to Taken is a bit harsh. Overall this is a great film and one that if your a fan of thriller action films you should definitely see.