Pleasing and entertaining

Rating: 8/10 (2 October 2014)

Robert McCall leads a solitary life. Apparently subject to OCD, and certainly subject to insomnia, he spends his days working at a hardware store and the early hours reading classics in his local diner, where he exchanges friendly but inconsequential banter with a young hooker. When she is hospitalised by her brutal pimp, McCall decides that he can't sit and do nothing, at which point it becomes clear that there is some juicy detail in his backstory which we are not privy to. And neither are the Russian mafia, into whose territory he has strayed.
This 2014 film revisitation of a TV series starring Edward Woodward is, perhaps, somewhat overdue, as the premise – a lonely vigilante fighting on behalf of the underdog – is always a favourite. And, like Liam Neeson's Bryan Mills in Taken, Robert McCall is that most satisfying of movie characters, someone fighting on the side of good who is both willing to, and very good at, using the non-gentlemanly tactics that the baddies use.
McCall is a character full of contradictions and illogicalities, but he is so well drawn and well played by Washington, that all the illogicalities make sense by the end of the film. Washington is aided by very good performances from the rest of the case. Chloe Moretz' underage hooker adds another worthwhile entry to her CV, and it is particularly good to see Marton Czokas, after years of first class but unremarkable support playing, getting to play a truly memorable primary character in the part of mob enforcer "Teddy." This film doesn't have much depth, but it is a solidly entertaining and well-made crowd-pleaser.