'When you pray for rain, you gotta deal with the mud too.'

Rating: Null/10 (2 January 2015)

Antoine Fuqua (Training Day, Shooter, Olympus has Fallen, etc) has rethought and adopted the television series by the same name (Michael Sloan and Richard Lindheim) with a script by Richard Wenk into a movie that is so well made that it shows every actor in the film at his/her best. Yes, it is violent, but the violence is directed at those evil men who benefit from the misery of others, never being arrested and never submitting to punishment.
Robert McCall (Denzel Washington in one of his finest roles) believes he has put his mysterious past behind him and has dedicated himself to beginning a new, quiet life in Boston, Massachusetts. He is methodical and supportive and works at the Home Mart store, frequently helping his co-workers. Every night, McCall goes to a diner to read a book and drink tea, and he befriends the teenager Russian prostitute Teri (Chloë Grace Moretz), the alias of Alina. One night, Alina's pimp Slavi (David Meunier) brutally beats her and she goes to the intensive care unit (ICU) of the local hospital. McCall goes to the Russian restaurant where Slavi is and offers US$ 9,800.00 for the freedom of Alina. However Slavi does not accept the offer and McCall kills him and his four bodyguards. The Russian mafia kingpin Vladimir Pushkin sends the cruel enforcer Teddy (Marton Csokas – in an exceptionally fine performance) to find who killed his men. Soon he finds that McCall is the one who killed the mobster and Teddy begins a war against him. McCall may have a mysterious past but he has become a 'Robin Hood' hit man who destroys those people who prey on others and in doing so he changes the lives of those for whom he is the benefactor.
The plot is appropriately complex, involving bad cops, the FBI, the Russian gangs and their multiple crime influences of human and drug and oil trafficking. The excellent cast includes Johnny Skourtis as Ralphie – the obese lad Robert McCall guides to a better life, Melissa Leo in a very brief but poignant role, Bill Pullman, David Harbour, Haley Bennett, etc. After a fine and tense drama the film is all but ruined by the wholly unnecessary noisy Rap music that destroys the mood during the credits. Despite this, this is a very fine film, overlooked for some reason.