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EQUALIZER 2 – STARFISH ON A BEACH

SHORT TAKE:

Death Wish – style movie with a more sophisticated philosophy and more intelligent presentation than most.

WHO SHOULD GO:

Adults only. Little sexuality but a lot of harsh language and extreme amounts of violence.

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LONG TAKE:

One of the rules of good scriptwriting is SHOW DON'T TELL and I think Equalizer 2 did a (excuse the pun) bang up good job on this point.

I've gotten rather fond of Jeremy Scott's eviscerative observations on Cinema Sins. Although replete with profanity and spiced with the occasionally mildly raunchy comment, his analysis of movies, and disclosure of poorly written, clichéd weaknesses and foibles are not only usually very funny but spot on. When writing screen and stage plays, I now pointedly try to avoid the fallback easy positions like: heavy handed exposition, predictable setups, and stereotype characters, with a small voice in the back of my head optimistically warning that if ever this is produced, you don't want to hear that bell count out ill-advised boiler plate tropes.

And while watching movies, I find myself predicting what Jeremy will catch. Citing "Narration" as the self-explanatory critique and reason for the "sin," one of his pet peeves is excessive expositing. In the beginning of even blockbuster or well respected movies, such as Black Panther or Lord of the Rings, a chronicler will spout a long garrulous anecdote, covering decades or centuries worth of background.

That does not happen in Equalizer 2.

SPOILERS BUT ONLY FOR PEOPLE WHO HAVE NOT SEEN THE TRAILER

The premise, building upon the original, is that an ex-CIA operative, Robert McCall, now thought dead, lives a quiet life as a Lyft (read Uber) driver, doing good deeds where he can. The main storyline of Equalizer 2 follows McCall when, about a half hour into the movie, his friend is brutally murdered. McCall announces, is expected to, and eventually does, take violent retribution against the perpetrators. But I found the subplots, and the way the narrative is handled, far more interesting.

For example, the movie starts, (and not properly a spoiler as it is in the trailer) with a Muslim-costumed Denzel Washington confronting Turkish thugs on a train. Only later, as he goes about his normal routine back in Chicago do we OBSERVE how he knew of a problem and what it would take to fix it. The set up and solution were very quietly and subtly handled. And this small subplot did not even directly relate to the main action, but only served to establish McCall's abilities and personality.

The most compelling part of the screenplay was how McCall exercises that platitude of doing random acts of kindness using the gifts we have. For us ordinary mortals, it might be holding someone's door open or even paying for the coffee of the stranger in line behind you. For McCall it's beating the tar out of dangerous, abusive men then making them call the cops on themselves afterwards. When asked why he would take on the job of cleaning spray paint graffiti off of a wall when anyone else could do it, he responds that, although anyone else COULD, no one else DOES, so he does. This is the mantra from which he lives and a motto which raises the bar on what could otherwise have been just another Death Wish vigilante violence porn clone. While I'm not advocating vigilantism, often the mentality is a "kill them all and let God sort them out" philosophy.

It's refreshing to see this hero, in this genre, genuinely attempt to mete out justice, even often allowing the bad guys an opportunity to "do the right thing" on their own first.

Another of McCall's "projects" is a neighborhood kid who shows some promise as an artist, but is tempted by the quick money and allure of drug running. When asked by the boy, "Why me?" as in: why would you care or why risk your safety for me or do this for me, McCall answers simply, "Why NOT you?"

I was reminded of the parable of the Starfish. Traditionally attributed to an inspiration from the St. Augustine philosophy of doing what you can for those whom God puts in your path, the short tale is of an adult coming upon a child throwing starfish into the ocean. When asked what the child thinks he will accomplish, the child responds that the tide is going out and those left on shore will die. Surveying the thousands of starfish which littered the shore, the adult cautioned the child that he would make little difference given the overwhelming job facing him. The child responded with a smile as he threw another starfish into the ocean: "But I made a BIG difference to this one."

So go see Equalizer 2, not for the overused, familiar vengeance fueled chaos, or even for the nicely handled "show don't tell" exposition. Go to watch Washington's McCall use his singular gifts to save what starfish he can.

NOTE: As I was out of town for the writing of this one I was limited in the pictures I could add but will be updating, God willing, upon my return.

TERMINAL – BIZARRE FILM NOIR LOOSELY BASED UPON AN ALICE IN WONDERLAND TROPE

SHORT TAKE:

Macabre murder mystery of intrigue and betrayal set in a futuristic 1950's heavily referencing Alice falling down the rabbit hole.

WHO SHOULD SEE IT:

ONLY adults who have a strong stomach and a taste for true film noir

LONG TAKE:

"Terminal" (WITHOUT the article in front of the word, NOT THE Terminal which is a 2004 Tom Hanks dramedy about an immigrant stuck indefinitely in an airport terminal because of political turmoil in his home country) as the title of this 2018 movie, is a play on a number of aspects of the movie. Much of it takes place in and around an airport terminal – the obvious reference. One of the characters can be described adjectively as "terminal". And "terminal" is the final end to which many of the characters seem to be rushing for one reason and another either voluntarily or not.

The premise of the movie, written and directed by Vaughn Stein (who has been crew for such disparate movies as World War Z, the live action Beauty an the Beast and Les Mis) follows the machinations of Annie, played by Margot Robbie who seems to be making a career of playing crazier and crazier women – Harlequin in Suicide Squad, Tonya Harding in I, Tonya, Mrs. Milne in Goodbye, Christopher Robin, and now this. Annie is a professional assassin whose bloody and coldblooded antics might have given even Harlequin a frowny pause.

A reference to the classic nihilistic play Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett may seem like a non-sequitur at this point but bear with me. Waiting for Godot is a nihilistic play about two hoboes waiting for a third man who never shows up and in the end they hang themselves because nothing really matters. The Dumb Waiter by Harold Pinter harkens back to Waiting for Godot. The Dumb Waiter is about two gangsters waiting in a basement for orders on their next job and sinister unspoken messages that come through a pipe from an unseen manipulator. Both of those plays have an absurdist nature to them imparted in the characters willingness to wait in slavish patience for someone or something which may or may not be evilly playing with them.

I mention those plays because there is a certain element in the atmosphere common to them and to Terminal. There is even a prolonged and crucial scene in which two hit men (played by Dexter Fletcher and Max Irons) wait in a room for days for orders on their next kill from a client who no one has ever seen. This is more than a passing reference and feeds in to the physical and mental anarchy that pervades this creepy night-lit underground outing. Speaking of which, night and day light play important features too. Hiding in the dark. Things not what they appear to be but hiding in shadows. Frankly, I think the director missed a beat by not filming it entirely in black and white. But then we couldn't get the stark and almost shockingly red lips which precede Annie's entrance in almost every scene she's in.

This is a rough and thoughtful movie. But, alas, also a bit boring as its pace is too slow. Much like a walk which should have been taken at a jog, Terminal drags on with too many flashbacks and too much lingering on a single image, like viewing a stake out through the eyes of someone distracted by illness or grief. If it sounds like a depressing movie – well, it is. Not that that should dissuade anyone in and of itself. But there should be a purpose to enduring a movie like this. And satisfying a somewhat predictable series of surprise endings just is not enough.

Margot Robbie does her dead level best as a restrained psychopath. Simon Pegg (Shawn of the Dead, the last few Mission Impossibles, and the new Star Trek's new Scotty), performs the most serious role I've ever seen him in, as the terminally ill teacher. And Mike Myers (the voice of Shrek himself), who has not been in a feature length movie since 2009's Inglourious Basterds, is almost unrecognizable as a ubitquitous and mysterious janitor who seems to know way more than he should. (It's been so long snce Mr. Myers appeared in other than a voiced part that someone expressed surprise to me not just that he was in such a dark movie but that he was still ALIVE!)

While definitely not for everyone's taste and MOST definitely NOT for other than the older mature audience this is an intriguing movie which is mesmerizing in the same way that some National Geographic specials featuring insects devouring their kill are hard to watch but hard to look away from. There's a lot of profanity, a number of scenes of a sexual nature and some graphic violence as you might imagine in a movie about hit—people.

There are a number of references both subtle and overt to Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, including outright quotes from his book. Thematically there is chaos, bizarreness, unpredictability, people being often both "bigger" and "smaller" than you might have thought they were in the beginning, and even the familiar and most obvious Alice in Wonderland trope of an actual hole in the ground. So I don't think it would be inappropriate, as Alice might have said, for my final words on this film to be …. curiouser and curiouser.