Everyone wants to know.....

Rating: 7/10 (28 December 2014)

Robert McCall works at the Home Mart store, frequently helping his co-workers make better of themselves.
Every night, McCall goes to a diner, and he befriends teenager Teri, who is a lady of the night.
One night, her pimp Slavi brutally beats her and she is hospitalised. McCall goes to the Russian restaurant where Slavi is and offers money for her freedom. Slavi does not accept the offer, so McCall kills him and his four bodyguards.
Russian kingpin Vladimir, sends enforcer Teddy 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......
The first thing you notice is that this has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the eighties series of the same name. Now if you can forgive its shortcomings, and cashing in on a well known name, its a perfectly perfunctory action movie, with one of Hollywoods biggest stars at present.
And Fuqua knows how to direct action sequences. It's just a blooming shame he doesn't know how to trim a movie, because this is at least half an hour too long, and feels a little bloated at times. Even though Denzel is the only reason to watch this, we could have done without all the zen type stuff he does in this, and many other films he is in.
You know,the calm soothing monologues about life, and the past that seem to go on for ages, and instead of drawing you toward the character more, pulls you away from the narrative.
Moretz is in it at the beginning to trigger his revenge switch, and then pops up at the end to show him that all his equalising was worth it, because she reads books, and wears no more make up.
The action is relentless and pretty brutal, and even though the first set piece reminded me of the slow motion bit in Spider-man, the final showdown in the hardware store harks back to the exploitative slasher movies of the eighties.
So all in all, its nothing groundbreaking, way too long, and just a showcase for Denzel.
But he does walk away from an explosion in slow motion, that's always worth a watch.