Sorry Denzel, not even your amazing talent could save this laughably insultingly lame, simple-minded, patronizing movie straight from the mind of a toddler trapped in a 38 year old Hollywood screenwriter fantasizing about saving abused hookers from fat Russian mobsters. But 2 good things about this movie: 1) Denzel AND 2) Mustache twirling, bootleg Kenneth Branagh main villain.
And from this point on my review will simply be titled "Hollywood Thinks...."
1) Hollywood thinks that Russians speaking to each other randomly pepper-in English for some odd reason & then go back to their native language to say important info like "Yes"
2) Hollywood thinks every man only gets mad about injustice when it's a young attractive female who is being abused and beaten by rich, fat, ultra violent, mustache twirling foreigner/weirdos.
3) Hollywood thinks ex-CIA members go around wiping out entire crime families not because they want to stop crime or injustice to the general public, but because one white woman was abused by Russian pimp-mobsters who very obviously had done that type of thing to countless men/women before. But it is okay for the hero to murder people because, hey, they hit a woman & they are one-dimensional evildoers who don't deserve even a trial or gas chamber for their crimes, they deserve a vigilante death.
4) Hollywood thinks the Russian mafia and the Boston PD are both incompetent fools: These rocket scientists run around saying things like "no witnesses" but brashly brandish guns in broad daylight and shoot at things all the time out in public while doing faux-military hand- gestures thought up by the 5 year old screenwriter while playing Contra. And apparently half of the corrupt cops in this universe are making gobs of money with the oh-so-dangerous yet generic "mafia" groups while the other half is shaking down Mexican Jack Black's mom for pocket change at a taco stand because that's such a booming industry in the Southy Projects. Feed me to thah POOR by dah way.
5) Hollywood thinks an ex-CIA member can lecture mobsters about lying, killing, and insulting a government agency for corruption...as if they have such a squeaky clean record. And they also think we the idiot simpleton audience is supposed to shake in our boots at these tired, played out tropes revolving around the "RUSSIANS" and "CIA" and "CORRUPT COPS" who talk like caricatures from an unreleased Sopranos sub-plot.
6) Hollywood thinks that every vigilante murder, destruction of property, torture, etc. can be written off as legitimate because said vigilante was an ex-CIA/FBI/Law enforcement officer with some current tie to an operational government contact (in this case a female instead of a male because that is just so out of the box & unexpected) So progressive this film.
7) Hollywood thinks they need to shoot everything in slow motion because MATRIX.
8) Hollywood thinks people with guns often give vigilantes 20 minutes of slow motion time to plan out killing them with random blunt or sharp objects just after adjusting skull-shaped items to foreshadow their doom.
9) Hollywood thinks the audience is stupid (and they may have a point) so constantly have characters yell out things like "OH THIS IS THE RING I LOST" and "OH MY GOD YOU DID IT!" because we idiots could not done figure that out oh golly geez and a wippdee doo!
10) Hollywood thinks by shooting people talking that are famous and telegraphing what is good and evil, over and over again with the same idiotic tropes, that it counts as great cinema. F**K Hollywood and F**K this movie.
And from this point on my review will simply be titled "Hollywood Thinks...."
1) Hollywood thinks that Russians speaking to each other randomly pepper-in English for some odd reason & then go back to their native language to say important info like "Yes"
2) Hollywood thinks every man only gets mad about injustice when it's a young attractive female who is being abused and beaten by rich, fat, ultra violent, mustache twirling foreigner/weirdos.
3) Hollywood thinks ex-CIA members go around wiping out entire crime families not because they want to stop crime or injustice to the general public, but because one white woman was abused by Russian pimp-mobsters who very obviously had done that type of thing to countless men/women before. But it is okay for the hero to murder people because, hey, they hit a woman & they are one-dimensional evildoers who don't deserve even a trial or gas chamber for their crimes, they deserve a vigilante death.
4) Hollywood thinks the Russian mafia and the Boston PD are both incompetent fools: These rocket scientists run around saying things like "no witnesses" but brashly brandish guns in broad daylight and shoot at things all the time out in public while doing faux-military hand- gestures thought up by the 5 year old screenwriter while playing Contra. And apparently half of the corrupt cops in this universe are making gobs of money with the oh-so-dangerous yet generic "mafia" groups while the other half is shaking down Mexican Jack Black's mom for pocket change at a taco stand because that's such a booming industry in the Southy Projects. Feed me to thah POOR by dah way.
5) Hollywood thinks an ex-CIA member can lecture mobsters about lying, killing, and insulting a government agency for corruption...as if they have such a squeaky clean record. And they also think we the idiot simpleton audience is supposed to shake in our boots at these tired, played out tropes revolving around the "RUSSIANS" and "CIA" and "CORRUPT COPS" who talk like caricatures from an unreleased Sopranos sub-plot.
6) Hollywood thinks that every vigilante murder, destruction of property, torture, etc. can be written off as legitimate because said vigilante was an ex-CIA/FBI/Law enforcement officer with some current tie to an operational government contact (in this case a female instead of a male because that is just so out of the box & unexpected) So progressive this film.
7) Hollywood thinks they need to shoot everything in slow motion because MATRIX.
8) Hollywood thinks people with guns often give vigilantes 20 minutes of slow motion time to plan out killing them with random blunt or sharp objects just after adjusting skull-shaped items to foreshadow their doom.
9) Hollywood thinks the audience is stupid (and they may have a point) so constantly have characters yell out things like "OH THIS IS THE RING I LOST" and "OH MY GOD YOU DID IT!" because we idiots could not done figure that out oh golly geez and a wippdee doo!
10) Hollywood thinks by shooting people talking that are famous and telegraphing what is good and evil, over and over again with the same idiotic tropes, that it counts as great cinema. F**K Hollywood and F**K this movie.