Movie Review: The Equalizer 3 (2023)

Genre: Action Thriller  
Director: Antoine Fuqua  

Starring: Denzel Washington, Dakota Fanning  

Running Time: 109 minutes  

Synopsis: In Sicily, ex-US Marine Robert McCall (Denzel Washington) infiltrates a gangster-controlled villa in his pursuit of a stolen item. Wounded while exfiltrating, he is helped by a kindly doctor and a police officer to recuperate in the town of Altamonte on the Amelfi coast. Once healthy, McCall starts to enjoy the slower pace of life and befriends locals including business owner Aminah (Gaia Scodellaro). He alerts the CIA's Emma Collins (Dakota Fanning) about dangerous drugs at the Sicilian villa, then tangles with a brutal Camorra faction led by Vincent (Andrea Scarduzio). 

What Works Well: The third chapter in Robert McCall's even-the-score vengeance adventures is a bit more laid back, with enjoyment of the quaint Italian coastal scenery the primary preoccupation for director Antoine Fuqua. Plenty of time is invested interacting with good-hearted locals and admiring idyllic cafes, piazzas, small stores, and winding steep staircases. In contrast the action scenes are few and far between, but still full of impact and gore. The plot is a standard set-up for a one-against-many showdown, and mafioso Vincent is appropriately despicable, but neither he nor his goon army can resist Washington's effortless star charisma.

What Does Not Work As Well: The script reaches for an awkward mix of Camorra, ISIS, drug trafficking, and off-screen acts of terrorism, but never achieves contextual success. The climax is particularly bland and free of tension, while Dakota Fanning tries hard but never comes close to convincing as a CIA agent.

Conclusion: Pretty picturesque and predictably polished.



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Movie Review: The Great Debaters (2007)

Genre: Biographical Drama

Director: Denzel Washington

Starring: Denzel Washington, Forest Whitaker, Nate Parker, Jurnee Smollett, Denzel Whitaker, John Heard

Running Time: 126 minutes

Synopsis: The setting is Texas in the 1930s. At the all-black Wiley College, teacher Melvin Tolson (Denzel Washington) assembles a debate team including students Henry Lowe (Nate Parker), Samantha Booke (Jurnee Smollett), and James Farmer Jr. (Denzel Whitaker). Lowe is a spirited womanizer, Booke is the first woman to join the debate team, and Farmer is the precocious 14-year-old son of a preacher (Forest Whitaker). As the team's reputation grows with a series of wins, Tolson pursues union-organizing side-activities, a romance develops between Lowe and Booke, while Farmer harbours a crush on his female teammate and waits for his opportunity to shine.

What Works Well: Based on actual events, The Great Debaters carries the earnest appeal of scrappy underdogs using intellect and courage to overcome societal barriers and achieve national prominence. The production design recreates an appealing 1930s Texas aesthetic, with the debate topics adding the texture of the era's depression-driven societal issues. The prevailing Jim Crow laws infuse the drama with the ugly potency of an unjust society.

What Does Not Work As Well: The power inherent in the story is more impactful than the execution. Tolson's labour activism, Lowe's philandering, and the romantic entanglements are ultimately small stories that distract from the central narrative. Washington the director pays scant attention to the skills, training, and practice required to succeed at intellectual debates.

Conclusion: Upstanding but not outstanding.



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Movie Review: The Bone Collector (1999)

Genre: Crime Mystery Thriller

Director: Phillip Noyce

Starring: Denzel Washington, Angelina Jolie, Queen Latifah, Michael Rooker, Luis Guzman, Ed O'Neill

Running Time: 118 Minutes

Synopsis: In New York City, police detective and crime scene investigation expert Lincoln Rhyme (Denzel Washington) is a bedridden quadriplegic, cared for around the clock by nurse Thelma (Queen Latifah). A wealthy industrialist and his wife are kidnapped by a taxi-driving maniac, and the tycoon is soon found dead near rail tracks. Amelia Donaghy (Angelina Jolie) is the first police officer on the scene, and Lincoln recognizes her innate evidence-gathering talent. They work together to try and rescue the murdered man's wife in what proves to be a series of connected grisly incidents.

What Works Well: This slick adaptation of Jeffrey Deaver's book benefits from the novelty of a quadriplegic as the central protagonist, and Denzel Washington is reliably excellent in the role. Rhyme's partnership with Amelia as his on-scene eyes and ears is suitably thorny. Director Phillip Noyce leverages cavernous, spooky, and dark crime scene settings without getting lost in shades and shadows.

What Does Not Work As Well: Thrusting Amelia as a cop with limited crime scene experience into the lead role of a complex and high-profile investigation is a huge leap of faith, while Rhyme demonstrates a remarkable ability to repeatedly connect small and spaced out dots. The nameless murder victims do not generate sympathy, and a sense of repetition creeps in as Amelia flashlights her way through one crime scene after another. The antagonist's backstory is flash fried.

Conclusion: A competent crime drama bumps against the limits of its own creativity.



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Movie Review: Devil In A Blue Dress (1995)

A neo-noir crime thriller, Devil In A Blue Dress enjoys exquisite period details and a suitably convoluted mystery.

The setting is Los Angeles in 1948. Recently unemployed machinist Easy Rawlings (Denzel Washington) is desperate to keep up with his mortgage payments. He accepts a seemingly simple job from DeWitt Albright (Tom Sizemore) to locate a missing woman called Daphne Monet (Jennifer Beals), who is known to frequent Black nightclubs. Daphne is the girlfriend of politician Todd Carter, who dropped out of the mayoral race when she disappeared.

Easy connects with nightclub regular Coretta, who informs him Daphne is hanging out with a thug called Frank Green. Soon thereafter Coretta is found dead and Easy is a prime murder suspect. His life gets more complicated when Daphne surprisingly contacts him and together they visit the home of the sleazy Richard McGee. Easy also has an unsettling encounter with Matthew Terell (Maury Chaykin), the other candidate for mayor. As the dead bodies start accumulating, Easy calls upon his Texas-based friend Mouse (Don Cheadle) to join him in LA.

Evoking Raymond Chandler's sordid stories, Devil In A Blue Dress adds racial tensions to the familiar mix of sex, blackmail, and murder most foul. Writer and director Carl Franklin dreams up an almost-impossible-to-follow but still captivating story where power, politics, exploitation, and sleaze intermingle, every minor character matters, and everyone is corrupt at heart and working hard to hide it. Action, mood, seductiveness, and hints of humour maintain equilibrium.

In this world Black and white coexist uneasily. Albright specifically hires Easy because Daphne is known to frequent Black clubs. The police pester Easy more than necessary because of his colour, and the difficulties experienced by a Black man trying to ease into post-war middle class prosperity are never far from the surface. More subtle racial prejudices emerge as the layers of the mystery are peeled.

The plot is strong, but the film is also a visual treat. Franklin creates a bustling Los Angeles teeming with activity, the energy palpable in both the exterior and interior scenes. Era wardrobes and autos dress up the sets with impeccable taste, yellow-browns dominating the palette as a reminder of the always nearby desert.

Despite the narrative strength and stellar production design, weaknesses are also on display. A lot of the dialogue is mumbled, and too many key actions take place off-screen and are described rather than displayed. Everyone is willing to pay Easy plenty of money to locate Daphne, but she never seems that difficult to find. Jennifer Beals does not settle in the central femme fatale role, and is rarely able to project the necessary allure.

As an average but resourceful army veteran turned detective, Denzel Washington grounds the action, his acting better than the zing-free narration. Don Cheadle enters proceeding quite late, but leaves a wacky impression as the trigger-happy but none-too-bright Mouse. Devil In A Blue Dress is filled with oddballs up to no good, and looking good doing it.



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Movie Review: Out Of Time (2003)

A crime mystery thriller, Out Of Time embraces noir sensibilities but is hampered by a rush of coincidences and shortcomings.

In the small Florida Keys town of Banyan Key, police chief Matt Whitlock (Denzel Washington) has recently completed a drug bust, and the police station safe is stuffed full of seized cash. Matt's marriage to Miami homicide detective Alex Diaz (Eva Mendes) is falling apart, and he is carrying on an affair with Ann Merai (Sanaa Lathan), who is unhappily married to abusive ex-football player Chris (Dean Cain). Matt's one trusted friend is medical examiner Chae (John Billingsley).

Ann Merai is diagnosed with cancer, and designates Matt as her insurance policy beneficiary. Matt unwisely lends her the cash from the police safe to pay for expensive overseas treatment. But a fire destroys Ann Merai and Chris' house, seemingly killing them both, and the cash disappears. Alex arrives to investigate, and with a motive to kill and missing cash to explain, Matt has only a few hours to uncover the truth and avoid becoming the key suspect in a double murder.

Written by David Collard and directed by Carl Franklin, Out Of Time tries hard to combine ticking clock tension with noir motivations. A sun-drenched Florida setting and a vivid colour palette create a too-hot-to-handle sensual aesthetic, and the out-of-the-way small town vibe encourages an anything-goes attitude and nefarious actions away from big city eyes.

And many noir elements ooze from pores of greed and despair. Matt's broken marriage is prodding him into the moral grey zone where alcohol at all hours and an affair with a married woman somehow make sense. Ann Merai is an obvious femme fatale, using sex as a weapon, and always ready to play the victim. Her husband Chris and co-conspirator Paul Cabot are the criminal riffraff using goonery to compensate for a lack of guile. Mysterious fires, insurance payouts, and the lure of easy-to-steal drug money complete the picture.

The film's weaknesses are also on plain view. Apart from Denzel Washington, the acting is sub-par and approaches B-grade status. Sanaa Lathan never sells the trauma of a woman confronting a cancer diagnosis, immediately giving away the conspiracy. Eva Mendes tries hard but also never convinces as a detective. Director Franklin leans on standard frantic action scenes, well-executed but inconsistent with noir intentions, including hang-from-the-balcony fight-to-the-death contrivances.

With Matt afforded just a few hours to extricate himself from a mess of his own making, too many coincidences fall in his favour. Every piece of evidence needed by Alex to connect the dots and suspect her husband is conveniently delayed by happenstance or incompetence. However, Franklin does leverage the general ineptitude to construct an enjoyable and almost Hitchcockian sequence involving a delayed fax transmission.

Out Of Time is never out of ideas, but the ambition and execution are sometimes out of synch.



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Movie Review: Man On Fire (2004)

A revenge action thriller centred on a child kidnapping, Man On Fire is gripping, violent, and stylish.

With Mexico City experiencing a high rate of abductions for ransom, businessman Samuel Ramos (Marc Anthony) and his wife Lisa (Radha Mitchell) hire Creasy (Denzel Washington) as a bodyguard for their young daughter Pita (Dakota Fanning). Creasy is ex-military, but now has a drinking problem. He remains friends with Paul Rayburn (Christopher Walken), a former colleague who runs a security firm.

The dour and despondent Creasy gets off on the wrong foot with the talkative and curious Pita, but they then establish a deep bond of friendship. When heavily-armed kidnappers do target Pita, Creasy is unable to save her despite killing four assailants and being shot several times. While he recuperates, Samuel and lawyer Jordan Kalfus (Mickey Rourke) handle the ransom negotiations. But with corruption reaching the highest levels of the police force, the deal goes bad. Creasy vows revenge on all those who harmed his young friend.

Directed by Tony Scott from a Brian Helgeland script adapting A.J. Quinnell's 1980 novel, Man On Fire is a standard revenge story spiced-up by strong character development, hyperactive cinematography, and star power. While the man-on-a-mission-wasting-bad-guys premise offers little that is new, here the people are made to matter with smart pacing choices.

The first hour patiently introduces the flawed and self-aware Creasy, the smart and precocious Pita (short for Lupita), and the connection between them. At first she irritates him but then he helps her develop competitive swimming techniques and becomes a friend and trusted mentor. Denzel Washington and Dakota Fanning invest genuine humanity into the roles, adding a potent emotional punch to the subsequent violence.

Once the killing starts it does not stop, Creasy working his way up the criminal food chain from foot soldiers to mid-level operatives, corrupt officials and finally the masterminds. He is calm, methodical and outwardly emotionless, dismantling a shadowy organization consisting of thugs and sleazoids hiding behind uniforms and officious titles. All the bad guys call themselves professionals, but Creasy demonstrates what the term really means. The usual methods of torture are deployed to expeditiously extract the necessary information in time for the next rocket-propelled grenade to impart the required damage. And along the way a conspiracy twist is revealed, adding internecine venom.

Creasy is helped by a couple of locals to balance out the Mexican portrayals. Rachel Ticotin is reporter Mariana Garcia Guerrero, eager to expose government corruption and incompetence, and Giancarlo Giannini plays Miguel Manzano, a federal police director willing to provide assistance in exchange for the right perks.

The Mexico City locations add vibrant authenticity, while Scott's insistence on manic visual flair and demented editing borders on nauseating but achieves the intended kinetic buzz. Man On Fire is both cool and blazing.



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Movie Review: The Little Things (2021)

A serial killer investigation mystery, The Little Things aims for a dark and depressing vibe. Despite a stellar cast, the mood is undermined by a frequently shaky script.

The setting is California in 1990. Bakersfield Deputy Sheriff Joe Deacon (Denzel Washington) drives to Los Angeles to collect evidence and finds the city gripped by the case of a serial killer targeting young women. The case reminds Joe of an unsolved triple murder from years prior that ended his career as a star Los Angeles detective. When another woman is found dead in her apartment, Deacon prolongs his stay and teams up with detective Jim Baxter (Rami Malek) to try and apprehend the killer.

A known sexual predator is arrested but proves to be a dead end, while another woman disappears after a jog and is feared to be the latest victim. Deacon's sleuthing leads him to suspect appliance repairman Albert Sparma (Jared Leto), who is interrogated but reveals nothing. Under increasing pressure to stop the killings, Deacon and Baxter initiate round-the-clock surveillance to try and find evidence connecting Sparma with the murders.

Written and directed by John Lee Hancock, The Little Things is a collection of good ideas that don't quite gel. Deacon's troubled background and obsession with the case that broke him provides good contextual fuel, his complicated relationships with ex-colleagues, including coroner Flo Dunigan (the actress Michael Hyatt), providing an organically shredded texture. With this solid foundation the plot threatens to spark into a good psychological thriller, but unfortunately never ignites. 

Hancock is unable to meaningfully push deep into any of the avenues available to him, starting with a poor definition of Baxter's character. Rami Malek appears lost in the role, Baxter somehow an ace detective yet apparently incompetent when it comes to making deductions, finding evidence, and targeting suspects. He is too quick to welcome Deacon onto his turf, and later disintegrates with alarming speed into a mess of bad decisions.

Meanwhile Leto's Sparma takes a long time to join proceedings as a primary suspect, but is then not menacing enough, speaking in circles and happy to lead the detectives on a merry dance of non-confessions. Not enough is known about the killer's frame of mind or motives to build a threatening profile, and the victims remain abstract. Hancock lingers at one murder scene but does not generate empathy for any of the women, past or present. The climax is a particular let-down, all the narrative weaknesses coming together and sinking into literal and metaphorical holes. 

Despite a tendency to over-exaggerate mouth gestures, Denzel Washington is in stellar form and almost rescues the film. But when many little things don't work, everything suffers.



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Movie Review: John Q (2002)

A hostage drama, John Q spotlights the medical insurance crisis in the United States through the story of a desperate father resorting to desperate measures.

With the economy in bad shape, Chicago factory worker John Quincy Archibald (Denzel Washington) and his wife Denise (Kimberly Elise) are struggling to make ends meet. Their son Mike suddenly falls ill, and Doctor Raymond Turner (James Woods) of Hope Memorial Hospital diagnoses an enlarged heart. Mike will die without priority heart transplant surgery. 

But with John's insurance coverage degraded due to his reduced working hours, hospital administrator Rebecca Payne (Anne Heche) refuses to place Mike on the transplant list unless John and Denise can come up with a $75,000 down payment for the surgery. 

When all fund-raising efforts and applications for aid come up short, John storms the hospital's emergency room with a gun, takes hostages and demands Mike be placed on the surgery list. Negotiator Lieutenant Frank Grimes (Robert Duvall) and Chief Gus Monroe (Ray Liotta) of the Chicago Police are tasked with resolving the crisis, which escalates into a media circus.

Inspired by a system providing insufficient medical coverage for already struggling blue collar workers in one of the world's wealthiest nations, John Q is part message movie and part traditional hostage drama. With Denzel Washington reliably excellent in the leading role, director Nick Cassavetes and writer James Kearns underline institutionalized failures with plenty of passion but little panache. 

The first hour is dedicated to John and Denise's home life, Mike's sudden illness, and frantic attempts to find a financial aid solution within government channels or through community outreach. An underfunded and broken bureaucracy never comes close to providing relief, John's friends and neighbours are as broke as he is, and insurance companies are experts at the run-around. 

Meanwhile the character of Rebecca Payne is the cold and calculating face of a soulless system delivering medical care only to those who can afford it, Anne Heche portraying an administrator over-accustomed to simplifying every human transaction into a balance sheet entry.

The second half is a hostage drama trying hard to recreate elements of Dog Day Afternoon, with limited success. The media bite into an underdog story, the boisterous crowd gathers to cheer a new folk hero, the hostages are a colourful cross-section of society offering irritation and some humour, and the Stockholm syndrome predictably takes hold on the inside as Robert Duvall and Ray Liotta bungle the response outside. 

But John Q. Archibald is never less than a decent man wanting to do good by his son, and carries no genuine threat. Cassavetes has to look for tension elsewhere as the ordeal drags on, and meanders into a minefield of contrived junctures. Late in the day Washington pulls off a masterful father-son moment as a reminder of what is at stake, but John Q joins the crowd of well-intentioned causes pulverized by mechanical assembly.



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Movie Review: 2 Guns (2013)

A buddy movie with plenty of action and a streak of humour, 2 Guns offers oodles of star charisma but a nonsensical plot involving a drug cartel, bank heist, and numerous far-fetched hidden agendas.

Bobby Beans (Denzel Washington) and Michael "Stig" Stigman (Mark Wahlberg) have partnered to infiltrate and profit from the Mexican drug cartel of Papi Greco (Edward James Olmos). Maintaining a thorny friendship, they keep their identities hidden from each other and both pretend to be easy-going underworld types, but Beans is actually with the DEA and Stig is with Navy Intelligence.

Beans is romantically involved with the DEA's Agent Deb Rees (Paula Patton), and arranges for Stig to be arrested after they rob a small bank holding $3 million in cartel money. But to everyone's surprise the bank heist yields a mammoth $43 million in cash. Beans and Stig start to suspect each other, and then have to evade killers from the cartel as well as rogue Navy assassins and an angry CIA dark ops unit.

An adaptation of a comic book series by Steven Grant, 2 Guns is a stylish exercise in wild action riding a ridiculous story. The film demands compliant brain disengagement and simple vibe enjoyment. Director Baltasar Kormákur tries for a while to maintain control of the narrative, but then the logic gaps expand into yawning canyons, brain-twisting double crosses multiply, and various groups of barely defined shady operatives show up with big guns intent on killing other groups of less defined shady operatives with bigger guns. 

As a good complement to the uncontrolled energy, the film's visuals pop off the screen. The vivid colour palette draws inspiration from the Mexican and southern US locales, the incessant sunshine and stark desert offering bright yellows and browns as backdrops for the frequent fire fights, car chases and macho posturing. Kormákur keeps the action moving at a breakneck pace, a good strategy to avoid coherence probes, and wraps up the adventure in 109 minutes.

Stars Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg are in fine form and immediately click as a pair, zipping through banter and biting quips with pleasing buoyancy. Washington is more serious and circumspect and often provides a cool anchor amidst the mayhem. Wahlberg is restlessly jovial, his best plans consisting of antagonism mixed with straight-ahead bulldozing. Bill Paxton enjoys himself as the CIA's Earl, but the rest of the cast members are given little to work with and probably never quite knew which side they were on in any given scene.

2 Guns contains a lot more than just the two guns, but it's the two stars who carry the day.



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Movie Review: Roman J. Israel, Esq. (2017)

A character study, Roman J. Israel, Esq. creates a provocative protagonist and explores the conflict between idealism and pragmatism, but with limited success.

In Los Angeles, Roman (Denzel Washington) has worked hard for 35 years and for minimal pay as a researcher for the fledgling two-person law firm of legendary civil rights activist and teacher William Jackson. Roman is a savant, well versed in the law, but socially awkward and lacking in polish and empathy. When Jackson is permanently incapacitated by a heart attack, his estate brings in slick lawyer George Pierce (Colin Farrell) to wrap up the remaining cases and close down the firm.

Roman tries to find work with civil rights activist Maya Alston (Carmen Ejogo), and although she is sympathetic her organization consists of volunteers. To survive Roman has no choice but to join George's firm, where he is put to work representing underprivileged clients. Roman fumbles the plea bargain of an accused in a botched convenience store robbery turned murder. Growing disillusioned with his life, he decides to reorient and embrace the materialistic world.

Written and directed by Dan Gilroy, Roman J. Israel, Esq is a focussed character study, capturing a late-career shock to the system. The film offers an astounding Denzel Washington performance, playing a ruffled, out of time and out of place man, so intensely absorbed by his ideals he has not noticed the changing world outside his office.

In an echo of Being There, Israel is forced in to the big wide world by the death of his mentor, and discovers a society where his tenacious courtroom skills land him in immediate trouble, lawyers rake in fortunes, and supporters of the cause are volunteers paid nothing. Not to mention that both his wardrobe and hairdo, stuck in the early 1970s, are in desperate need of a makeover.

The film is not as tight as it should be. The 122 minutes of running time are flabby for what is essentially a single-person zoom-in. And surprisingly, despite the length, somewhere in the muddled editing process Gilroy botches a key inflection point in Israel's journey, his betrayal of lawyer-client confidentiality privileges skipping at least one critical detail that needed to be on-screen.

But overall the film offers enough scope to maintain interest. The temptation of leaving behind the purity of the civil rights fight plays out in Roman's stooped and uncertain walk, his tired eyes and his cluttered and depressing apartment. Exposed to the world of riches represented by George's expensive suits and the possibility of moving into a shiny downtown suite, even an awkward legal savant will want to test the waters of a superficially better life. The subsequent moral quandary is treated in an appropriately low key, although the resolution is too tidy on a couple of fronts.

Roman J. Israel, Esq attempts to jolt ahead to catch up with the times, making for a sympathetic but bumpy ride.

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Movie Review: The Equalizer 2 (2018)

An action thriller, The Equalizer 2 is a solid second chapter in the story of a troubled ex-government killer who now works on his own terms.

Former Special Forces operative Robert McCall (Denzel Washington) eliminates a band of thugs on a train in Turkey, returning an abducted American child to her mother. Now working as a Lyft driver in Boston and still grieving the loss of his wife, McCall next tangles with a group of men who nonchalantly abused and drugged an escort. At his apartment complex, McCall takes aspiring artist Miles (Ashton Sanders) under his wing and tries to steer him away from a life of crime.

Meanwhile, in Belgium, a deep undercover American agent is killed along with his wife. McCall's close friend Susan Plummer (Melissa Leo) is sent to investigate on behalf of the CIA. She is soon in trouble, and McCall teams up with his former colleague ex-agent Dave York (Pedro Pascal) to investigate and dole out his unique brand of justice.

Again directed by Antoine Fuqua, The Equalizer 2 does not stray far from the original, which makes it both comfortably entertaining and just as comfortably predictable. This is a good quality film with excellent action scenes and plenty of space and time allocated for introspection and side-plots, but it never threatens to surprise.

Washington is by far the best thing on show, and his sheer presence and unflappable demeanour maintain a high degree of interest. Fuqua allows his star critical opportunities to reminisce about his past life and lost love, and McCall as a rounded and emotionally wounded character is so much more gratifying when he lets his anger loose. The Equalizer 2 is the first sequel project ever for both Washington and Fuqua, and their level of care for the central character is evident.

Helping matters along are several small stories enriching McCall's character. The episode in Turkey, the drugged escort, the old man droning on about his missing sister and his stolen painting, and the Miles salvation project all add texture and a mostly welcome warmth to the proceedings. However, the incidental chapters do pad the running time towards the upper limit of what is tolerable, the film clocking in at a flabby two hours.

The core plot starts with the brutal assassination in Belgium and culminates in McCall seeking cold revenge on those who have wronged Susan. The vigilante theme is as worn out as it sounds, and neither Fuqua's often clever visuals nor Washington's silky delivery can reinvent it. The bad guys are easy to guess and utterly lacking in personality.

The Equalizer 2 hits most of its targets, but most of them already carry the old bullet marks of many previous not dissimilar efforts.

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Movie Review: Fences (2016)

A social drama about the black working class experience, Fences benefits from strong performances but is overlong and hopelessly stagebound.

In Pittsburgh of the 1950s, Troy (Denzel Washington) is a rubbish collector married to Rose (Viola Davis). They live in a modest home paid for by a government payout to Troy's brother Gabriel (Mykelti Williamson), who sustained head injuries during the war and is now mentally impaired. Troy is proud of his life achievements, having survived a broken home and an abusive father. However, he remains deeply resentful that his skin colour prevented him from pursuing a big league baseball career.

Troy has a difficult relationship with his two sons. Lyons (Russell Hornsby) is an aspiring musician now in his mid-thirties, but Troy thinks he is wasting his time chasing an elusive dream. Cory (Jovan Adepo) is in high school and on track to secure a football scholarship, but Troy does not believe that black athletes will ever be given a fair chance, and demands that Cory focus on finding a job instead. While Rose is the rock in Troy's life, he is keeping a secret from her that will shake their marriage.

An adaptation of the August Wilson play directed by Washington, Fences delves into past, present and future hopes, dreams, and generational divides from the perspective of a small black family and particularly one man doing the best he knows how. With America on the cusp of social upheaval, Troy has pulled himself and his family into the outer ranks of respectability, but is now oblivious to the forthcoming seismic changes that will alter the future landscape of economic possibilities.

Meanwhile his wife and sons sense a coming era where skin colour will start to matter less and economic opportunities will expand. The conflict between defining a constrained destiny anchored in the past or embracing the tantalizing but uncertain promises of a different future lies at the heart of the film.

Troy revels in storytelling and dishing out uncompromising life advice, with his neighbour and co-worker Bono (Stephen Henderson) a frequent audience member along with the family members. The film is essentially a series of conversations, many of them monologues, taking place in Troy's backyard. Despite the potency of the material, at 2 hours and 20 minutes the film is significantly longer than it needs to be.

Both Troy and the meandering Gabriel are partially obsessed with death, and while frequent talk of battling the devil's legions and the armies of the grim reaper is colourful, the metaphysical distractions take away from the core familial drama.

Denzel Washington and Viola Davis deliver fully invested performances, the walls of the small house often shaking along with the turbulent prose of husband and wife. The dialogue and the acting are solidly on the theatrical side of the line, and while the naturalness is missing, the passion is palpable.

Fences is about what is allowed in and what gets left out in a couple's life. Troy defines his domain with robust wooden planks, for better or for worse.

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Movie Review: Unstoppable (2010)

A runaway train thriller, Unstoppable is visually appealing but has an extraordinarily limited premise.

At a Pennsylvania rail yard, a sloppy worker jumps out of slow moving train AWR 777 to throw a track switch. The train kicks into gear, and with the air brakes unattached, accelerates and leaves the yard unattended. The runaway train is half a mile long with four of the cars carrying dangerous cargo that could ignite on impact. Train yardmaster Connie Hooper (Rosario Dawson) swings into action to clear the track ahead of the runaway. Her boss Oscar Galvin (Kevin Dunn) tries to take charge, but makes all the wrong calls.

In the meantime veteran railroad engineer Frank Barnes (Denzel Washington) is winding down his career and spending the day training rookie conductor Will Colson (Chris Pine). Barnes lost his wife to cancer and has a strained relationship with his two daughters. Colson is in trouble with his wife, who has issued a restraining order. In their own freight train 1206, Barnes and Colson barely avoid the runaway. They take off after it in reverse, hoping to catch it, couple to it and slow it down before it derails at a dangerous curve in an urban area.

The last film directed by Tony Scott, Unstoppable is inspired by an actual, if much less dramatic, runaway train event that occurred in Ohio in 2001. The film contains no shortage of astounding cinematography capturing the raw kinetic energy of an out-of-control red beast on rails, cutting a swath through the countryside. And of course this being a Tony Scott film, a news helicopter or three always clatter away, inches from the train, just to add flair, drama and fury to the sound and visuals.

Unfortunately, Unstoppable offers precious little else beyond the obvious feast for the eyes. "Two men stop a train" is about as far as as the plot goes, and milking a 98 movie out of that flimsy premise proves to be as challenging as it sounds. Attempts to flesh out family stories for Frank and Will come across as contrived in the extreme, as does the awkward portrayal of dufus and incompetent managers back at the train company's headquarters. And while it is difficult to keep count, Unstoppable likely violates all the laws of physics before the drama comes to a smokey halt.

Denzel Washington and Chris Pine are workmanlike but constrained by the material, although the evolving level of respect between the two men within the train cab's confines maintains marginal interest. Rosario Dawson tries to inject some energy into proceedings back at the yard.

Unstoppable whizzes by, great visuals on rails, everything else an inconsequential blur.

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Movie Review: Crimson Tide (1995)

A post-Cold War submarine thriller, Crimson Tide expertly explores a tense scenario involving a high-stakes conflict among commanders.

Hunter (Denzel Washington) is the new Executive Officer (XO) on the USS Alabama, a submarine armed with nuclear missiles and commanded by Captain Ramsey (Gene Hackman). Ramsey is a cigar-chomping old school leader who creates his own rules but is respected by his men. Hunter is younger, more cerebral and willing to think through situations before pulling the trigger. When a rebel faction of the Russian army takes control of a nuclear facility and threatens to launch nukes at the United States, the Alabama sets sail in readiness for a potential war. The boat's officers include Zimmer (Matt Craven), Cob (George Dzundza), Weps (Viggo Mortensen) and Dougherty (James Gandolfini).

Hunter and Ramsey clash frequently as the sub approaches waters off Asia. Then an enemy sub is spotted, and at the same time orders are received to prepare for the launch of nuclear weapons against Russian targets. But after the Alabama sustains damage, including a breakdown of the communications system, another incomplete message is received, potentially canceling the missile launch orders. Ramsey insists on pressing ahead with the potentially world-altering launch of nukes, but Hunter demands a delay to verify the orders. A tense stand-off ensues, testing the loyalty of the the men on board.

Directed by Tony Scott and produced by the Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer power duo, Crimson Tide is a better example of what the glitzy 1990s could deliver in terms of cerebral-oriented thrillers. Mostly aiming for tension, mental strain and building drama instead of cheap thrillers and explosions, Scott makes good use of an original Michael Schiffer screenplay, and Crimson Tide is a fine example of the submarine war drama sub-genre, carrying echoes of classic command conflict dramas such as Run Silent, Run Deep and The Caine Mutiny.

The film's premise worms its way into a real but unlikely scenario. United States nuclear submarine commanders used to have a certain level of autonomy to launch nukes independent of final confirmation from the President. And the on-board situation conjured up by Schiffer was theoretically possible: both Hunter and Ramsey were correct in their opposing positions. With communications lost Ramsey was justified in following the last received orders and unleashing a holocaust. Hunter had enough reason to refuse to second that command. It's a compelling set-up and cleverly exploits the generational gap between the scar-tested Ramsey and the more circumspect Hunter.

But this is a Tony Scott film, and after a careful build-up the balance occasionally tips towards contrived thrills. Opposing forces are formed, guns are drawn, threats are made, there is a frantic race to fix damaged equipment and of course an artificial countdown clock provides a backdrop to a just-in-time climax.

The weaker moments are more than tolerable thanks to the fine form of the two leading stars. Denzel Washington and Gene Hackman are perfectly cast and expertly play off each other, Hackman comfortable as the seen-it-all crusty veteran confident in his own judgement, and Washington nailing the newcomer who has to tiptoe his way into a pre-established delicate dynamic between Captain and crew. When the two clash head to head, the screen positively sizzles. The supporting cast is disciplined, and Jason Robards makes an uncredited late appearance back on shore.

Crimson Tide streaks through the ocean on a mission to deliver taut entertainment, and the torpedoes mostly register satisfying hits.

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Movie Review: The Hurricane (1999)

A boxing, prison and court room drama, The Hurricane is based on the real-life of champion boxer Ruben Carter. Thanks to a potent story, a committed central performance by Denzel Washington and agile directing by Normal Jewison, the film is a dominant viewing experience.

It's the mid 1960s, and Ruben "The Hurricane" Carter is a top ranked middleweight boxer, having risen from a poor childhood including long stints in juvenile detention. With Hurricane at the peak of his abilities and fame, a triple murder is committed in a Paterson, New Jersey bar, with three patrons shot dead. Ruben and a friend happen to be in the area; they are arrested, convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Ruben insists that he is innocent and from his cell writes an autobiography.

With Ruben incarcerated a parallel story features Lesra Martin (Vicellous Reon Shannon), a young black man from Brooklyn being raised by a foster family in Toronto. Lesra takes an interest in Ruben after reading his book, and communicates with the boxer first through letters then visits. Eventually Lesra's guardians decide to investigate Ruben's case, and relocate to New Jersey to agitate for a legal review of his conviction.

Many other key characters from Hurricane's story also come to life. Featured prominently are Lesra's foster family Lisa Peters (Deborah Kara Unger), Sam Chaiton (Liev Schreiber) and Terry Swinton (John Hannah); Ruben's lifelong pursuer Detective Sargent Della Pesca (Dan Hedaya), Ruben's wife Mae Thelma (Debbi Morgan) and compassionate prison guard Jimmy Williams (Clancy Brown). Late in the film, David Paymer and Harris Yulin make important contributions as Ruben's long-term lawyers, while Rod Steiger has a short but memorable turn as a judge.

Directed by Norman Jewison as an adaptation of Carter's autobiography and the book by Chaiton and Swinton, The Hurricane is a powerful story about the search for justice. Set partially in the world of boxing and mostly behind prison walls, the film is a carefully crafted experience, covering close to 20 years of Carter's life and charting his unwavering dignity in the face of larger forces of racism, conspiracy and discrimination.

As with many biographical but non-documentary features, The Hurricane does portray Carter in the most favourable light, and his opponents come across as seething villains. The film rises above any such simplifications thanks to the intensity of its central performance. The Hurricane is quite possibly Denzel Washington's finest on-screen moment. He embodies the role and disappears into it, the actor leaving no trace as Ruben Carter comes to life, driven by rage, personal determination and quiet resistance. Whether in the ring or in prison, Washington is superb at finding the man smirking at a system that can defeat his body but never his soul, and expressing his emotions with a combination of lyricism and cutting critique.

The film runs for 145 minutes, but does not feel long. Especially in the first half Jewison keeps the energy level high and jumps across time to capture various episodes from Carter's life. Snippets from childhood through to life in prison are presented out of sequence but nevertheless logically, to establish the full scope of Ruben's life experience. The second half settles down and is more focused on attempts to secure Hurricane's release, and the film finds a new but still compelling groove as an amateur detective story seeking to lift the lid off decades of deception.

The Hurricane encapsulates rage in all its colours: a child's rage to survive, a boxer's rage to win, and a prisoner's rage to secure freedom. And it's the battles fought without weapons and boxing gloves that are ultimately most effective.

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Movie Review: The Magnificent Seven (2016)

A remake of the 1960 classic, The Magnificent Seven is a serviceable western with plenty of stellar action but little depth.

After the Civil War, the small town of Rose Creek is being terrorized by mining tycoon Bartholomew Bogue (Peter Sarsgaard) and his army of hired guns. Bogue is exploiting the surrounding land for gold and kills at random to scare the townsfolk off their farms. After losing her husband to the wave of terror, Emma Cullen (Haley Bennett) goes looking for mercenaries to push back against Bogue. She stumbles upon warrant officer Sam Chisolm (Denzel Washington), and he agrees to help.

Chisolm assembles a group of six other men: gambler Joshua Faraday (Chris Pratt), sharpshooter Goodnight Robicheaux (Ethan Hawke) and his sidekick knife expert Billy Rocks (Byung-hun Lee), frontiersman Jack Horne (Vincent D'Onofrio), Mexican outlaw Vasquez (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) and Comanche warrior Red Harvest (Martin Sensmeier). The seven men quickly eliminate Bogue's guards from Rose Creek, and set about fortifying the town's defences as Bogue plans a massive retaliatory attack with hundreds of men.

Directed by Antoine Fuqua, The Magnificent Seven gallops onto the screen with all guns blazing, a western with a predetermined focus to litter the screen with bloodless dead bodies while making seven stars look cool. The one reason for this version to exist is as an update with modern day stars, and Fuqua easily ticks that box with a diverse multi-ethnic cast, and adds a generational range for good measure. Washington is a healthy-looking 61, Martin Sensmeier is about half that, and the seven represent all the major ethnic group that built America.

The gun play and masculine violence is frequent and in traditional Fuqua style builds its way to overwhelming. Almost every other scene, and for some stretches every scene, features men killing other men. Several scenes end with multiple dead bodies decorating the dusty streets, raising concerns about the availability of enough pine boxes and grave diggers to clean up each subsequent mess. The flying bullets and stylish dispatching of bad guys is undeniably fun but also callous, as despite the 133 minutes of running length the film spends very little time providing context, background or humanizing back stories.

The final battle seems to last for about an hour, an all-out orgy of death complete with explosions and a Gatling gun spraying bullets with wild abandon. In an almost perfect example of quantity over quality, Fuqua parks his intentions firmly on the side of sheer numbers making up for the lack of depth. But there are only so many scenes of extras and stuntmen swan diving into death that the brain can absorb, and the film becomes an endless highlight reel where little stands out.

The script provides enough panache and the actors do well with what they have. Washington glides through the film as coolness personified, while Chris Pratt provides most of the animated energy and enjoys by far the best character resolution.

The 1960 version was an ode to the end of an era, gunmen questioning their purpose in life and aware of history closing their chapter. The 2016 version has little time for thoughtful pursuits, just snazzy style: there are hundreds of bad guys to kill, and a kill rate per minute that needs to be maintained.

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Movie Review: The Equalizer (2014)

A polished action thriller, The Equalizer offers plenty of style and an immersive Denzel Washington performance, but also a limited premise stretched over an unnecessarily long running time.

In Boston, former CIA operative Bob McCall (Denzel Washington) lives a lonely quiet life, works at a home improvement store, and still grieves the loss of his wife. Most nights he is unable to sleep and whiles away the hours at a 24/7 diner, where young prostitute Alina (Chloë Grace Moretz) is also a regular. Bob and Alina strike up conversations and become friends of sorts. When Alina gets badly roughed up by her Russian mobster pimp, Bob hunts down the den of gangsters and kills five bad guys in 28 seconds.

Unfortunately, the dead Russians are part of a much larger criminal cartel controlled by the Moscow-based Pushkin (Vladimir Kulich) and involved in bribery, corruption and extortion on a national scale. Pushkin dispatches his top henchman Nicolai (Marton Csokas) to find out who killed his men. Nicolai teams up with corrupt police officer Frank Masters (David Harbour), and they start to hunt down McCall to seek revenge.

Directed by Antoine Fuqua and based on the 1980s television series, The Equalizer oozes with  elegance. While the story is standard fare involving hissing Russian villains and an incredulously indestructible hero, Fuqua's weapon is Denzel Washington in fine form. Together director and star create enough depth in the central character to elevate the film above the merely ordinary.

McCall suffers from a combination of obsessive compulsive disorder, insomnia, and leftover depression from his wife's death. These ailments are hinted at on the margins of the film, creating enough of a tantalizing taste that this is a person with a rich emotional history worth spending time with, despite his loner tendencies.

Fuqua's best and worst attributes are revealed in the two highlight action scenes. McCall's cool invasion of the gang hangout to eliminate the scum responsible for Alina's agony is a masterpiece of build-up and execution. But later McCall has to deal with a dozen or so heavily armed goons in a home improvement warehouse store. That scene is both prolonged to the point of exhaustion and starts to resemble a slasher film parody, with McCall taking down his enemies one by one with an assortment of power tools rigged into weapons of death.

Marton Csokas provides a sturdy enough counterpoint to Washington, but Chloë Grace Moretz is shortchanged as she disappears from the film for a very long time. Melissa Leo and Bill Pullman appear in one scene as McCall's former colleagues from his prior life with the CIA.

The Equalizer is effective in what it does, but it does relatively little and for too long.

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Movie Review: The Siege (1998)

A New York City under martial law terrorism thriller, The Siege is a weird combination of the prescient and the ridiculous.

The CIA in cooperation with U.S. Army General William Devereaux (Bruce Willis) caries out the extra-judicial abduction and extradition of Sheik Akhmed bin Talal, the accused mastermind behind a spate of terrorist attacks against US interests. The Sheik's supporters, working out of various Brooklyn-based cells, initiate a terrorism campaign in New York City to secure his release, including blowing up a bus full of civilians. FBI Agent Anthony "Hub" Hubbard (Denzel Washington) and his Lebanese-born partner Agent Frank Haddad (Tony Shalhoub) try to make sense of the attacks but are kept in the dark by CIA officer Elise Kraft (Annette Bening), who hovers around the investigation both helping and hindering Hub's work.

Elise eventually reveals to Hub that she controls an agent with contacts among the terrorists, a man named Samir Nazhde (Sami Bouajila). Before Hub can do enough to disrupt the cells, more attacks are unleashed and civilians casualties mount, causing an uproar across the country. The calls for the army to be deployed in New York intensify, leading to a confrontation between Devereaux and Hubbard.

Directed by Edward Zwick, The Siege was released three years before the events of September 11, 2001. As such, the film deserves credit for predicting a lot of what happens when a country and a city are placed in the cross hairs of terrorists. The backlash against the Muslim community, the demands to throw immigrants out of the country, the illegal torture of suspects, and the hysteria that leads to the erosion of civil liberties all actually did happen in various forms after 9/11, and here Zwick and his team of three screenwriters capture close variations of the same.

Much less successful are the characterizations and some of the depictions of conflict between various arms of a government under crisis. The Siege is quick to have the FBI, the CIA and the Army at each others' throats, issuing threats with guns and rifles drawn, and arresting and incarcerating each other. While there are always jurisdictional turf wars, tensions and finger pointing, The Siege carries this element to ludicrous extremes and starts to lose credibility as soon as Hubble and Elise fail to communicate at the most basic level.

And in general, the characters are quite one-dimensional despite an impressive cast. Annette Bening gets the most to work with as Elise gradually reveals a backstory inspired by the 1990-91 Gulf War, but otherwise there is little depth to Hubbard, Haddad and Devereaux. Also lacking is any thoughtful context to the acts of terrorism as spoken by the perpetrators. They remain silent and faceless killers, their agenda and motivations filled in by others.

The Siege does enjoy well-polished moments of tension and urban horror as cruel atrocities are committed against an urban population. The depictions of the US Army as a blunt instrument that only knows to crudely trample on whatever terrain it is deployed to also ring true. In tackling the thorny issue of how to react to bloodthirsty terrorists without resorting to their tactics, the film manages to be prophetic and preposterous in equal measures..

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