Incredibly, Denzel Washington has never made a sequel in his more than four decades of extremely dazzling, nomination- and award-winning career. What broke his routine was "The Avenger" directed by Anthony Fuqua, which earned $192 million worldwide in 2014. The success of this work tells us that, just like Liam Neeson before it, there are still many audiences willing to pay to see the action heroes of age show their talents .
The second mainland Chinese film of "The Avenger" is titled "Special Attack on Sanctions", which sounds a step closer to an "action movie". Denzel once again played the retired CIA secret agent Robert McCall in the film, and in the process, there were many bones. The film was engrossing at first, but unfortunately fell apart in the final 35 minutes.
The "Sanctions" series is adapted from the 1980s American TV series "The Avenger". The film's actor McCall lives a simple and born life in the suburbs of Boston. He was drawn into a revenge situation that required his "very special skills".
The opening scene of the film takes place on a train in Turkey, but McCall's brutal skills aren't limited to traveling around the world, and the fight moves from the home-building company he worked for in the first to the second, where he drives as a driver. on the special car. When the girl who had hired his car on the app was sexually assaulted by a group of people, McCall beat the bad guys half to death.
In the first film, Melissa Leo and Bill Pullman, as Susan Plummer and husband Brian, both return to star in "Sanctions", they can also be said to be McCall's only friends. Susan is summoned to Brussels to investigate the suicide of an undercover CIA agent, but she herself is killed, and McCall finds herself caught in a dangerous and tangled web after years of living in silence, except for Susan Most people outside thought he was dead.
When McCall contacts ex-partner Dave York (Pedro Pascal "Red Viper"), he realizes that the rest of the team has become a freelance hitman and that Susan becomes their target because she suspects The case in Brussels is not suicide at all, but the attack of the killer who will eventually find clues in them. Needless to say, McCall would have turned against his former friends and colleagues as a result, blood spattered everywhere.
In "Sanctions", Denzel once again contributed a calm and layered performance , which also revealed his charm as a movie actor. The best part of the film is when McCall teaches Miles (Ashton Saunders in Moonlight), who lives in the same apartment as McCall, a young art student who is recruited by the locals. The fact that gangsters can make quick money is tempting. The chemistry between the two characters is simple and straightforward, and the atmosphere is white-hot as McCall goes deep into the poison and saves Miles from the fire.
In this film with little recognizability and deep supporting roles , a man who has long been broken coaxes and threatens a child to make wise choices and make fewer mistakes. This kind of plot is the closest thing to "Sanctions" There is an emotional side.
The screenwriter Richard Wink, who is returning this time, actually had better works before, but he seems to have given up in "Sanctions" , perhaps because of a lack of imagination. The lines in the film are also full of preaching, which makes people sound very embarrassed , and there is a more nonsensical metaphor - as the tension of the plot intensifies and the number of dead people in the film, the weather becomes more and more gloomy. There was wind in the background, and after a while it started to thunder, and then it started to rain. This is no longer a subtext, but an additional background sound effect.
All of this erupts in an infuriating way in the third act of the film , almost suddenly in a hurricane for no apparent reason. It's just too silly that McCall can summon York and some ex-partners out of thin air from empty buildings in the Wilderness, and then have a cat-and-mouse shootout amid a howling storm .
"Sanctions" is Denzel's fourth collaboration with director Fuqua, who gave Denzel the Oscar for Best Actor in 2001 for "Training Day." For the first time in this film, Fuqua makes extensive use of music and is also adept at grabbing the audience's attention, especially when the story isn't that great . Including the sand sculpture hurricane scene mentioned in the previous paragraph, the filming is not bad, and it does not appear that the CGI is too excessive.
Fuqua also knows how to lighten the 63-year-old Denzel and make the action scenes more in line with the strength he should have for his age . But to me, 2004's "Rage to the Rescue" is still the best, funniest, most impressive "Rage Denzel" film Denzel has ever made.
Author: Brent Simon
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