A curious sense of déjà vu envelopes you as you watch Denzel Washington, playing the part of vigilante hero Robert McCall, take on the Russian Mafia in Boston with uber-cool ruthlessness. And it’s not just because the McCall role puts you in mind of other such Hollywood depictions of one-man armies who dispense ‘private justice’ because, of course, the law enforcement is asleep at the wheel — or, worse, complicit in crime.
No, for some reason that I couldn’t immediately fathom, Washington’s character portrayal hits the spot closer home. The self-effacing manner that masks a steely grit (and an intriguing past); the supreme invincibility that lets him dodge bullets and (seemingly) even tame the time-space continuum; the unflagging sense of Zen-like calmness that he conveys — even when he’s mowing down the Mafia (and even an occasional petty thief) with admittedly gratuitous violence…
And then it hits you: Washington is obviously channelling his inner Rajinikanth. So much so that you half expect him to flick his wrist, Rajini style, and roar, “ En vazhi, thani vazhi ” (or the Hollywood scriptwriter equivalent thereof).
Like Rajini, the McCall character doesn’t go out seeking ‘trouble’: but his sense of justice is so innate that he can’t stand by when the Mafiosi flex their muscles in his neighbourhood. And when they rough up Teri, the streetwalker on their payrolls who is McCall’s nodding acquaintance at the local diner, they unleash the ruthless killing instinct in Washington, which he has tried so hard to cage after an unsavoury episode in his special-ops past (of which we are offered a few dark hints). The film is based on the moderately successful TV series from the 1980s, but director Antoine Fuqua infuses it with his distinctive touch, which finds expression in the free flow of blood-and-gore stuff that has all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Accordingly, Fuqua doesn’t have McCall go after the Mafia with all guns blazing: that would have been too easy, and wouldn’t have milked the bloody potential. Instead, he has McCall come up with inventive ways of erasing the baddies: with a corkscrew (which is shoved up a villain’s throat), with a glass shard — and, yes, with a sledgehammer. It’s revenge-porn at its gruesome ‘best’.
Marton Csokas plays Teddy, the dapper hit-guy specially dispatched from Moscow to get rid of the troublesome McCall, but for all his savage ruthlessness and for all the resources at his command, he proves hopelessly incompetent at neutralising the one-man vigilante army.
In the end, the few flashes of gripping (even if gory) action are small compensation for the agony of watching Washington make his enemies bleed — in slo-mo. Evidently, a sequel (and a franchise) is already in the works, which is good for Washington — but not so good for his fans, who will be less than enthused by this sub-par performance.
