I really like Denzel Washington. He has a tremendous library of films, most of which are definitely worth watching. I consider this to be one of them despite the fact that there is nothing new in this movie. It is basically just a carbon copy of something that has been done many times before and is not without it's faults. That being said; it was entertaining.
I will attempt to do this without spoilers but you know there really isn't much point in that seeing as how this movie has been done many many times before it just happens to star Denzel instead of Statham.
A quiet, apparently law-abiding, simple person who works a normal job is thrust into being a one-man-killing machine that is apparently unstoppable by a random act. This is not a new premise for a film by any means but like i said in the first sentence of this write-up: Despite the fact this has been done many times before the film is still entertaining. Just don't expect any sort of mind-blowing plot twists because there aren't any.
I was pleased to see the girl from "Kick Ass" in the start of this movie and was actually disappointed that her role was quite small in this movie despite the fact that she is of the utmost consequence seeing as how she is the reason why Denzel unleashes the beast that he has kept a secret from his co-workers for an unspecified amount of time in the first place.
Him and Kick Ass girl (Chloë Grace Moretz) are casual pals at a diner and that is about it. He witnesses her being pushed around by the Russian mob and well, obviously he has to bring them down in their entirety despite the fact that he is a staff member at a local Home Depot. It's pretty absurd.
Apparently, these sorts of people just live amongst us simpletons and I think one of the main reasons why heroes like this are made is so that those of us that actually do work simpleton jobs can feel as though there is a super-hero in all of us too. Denzel's background is not explained in the movie, but it is obvious that it is something extreme like higher than CIA power-type-stuff. If that is the case we are meant to believe that he just works at a lumber yard... sorry... too dumb.
I quite enjoy the calm manor in which he dispatches the people he faces off against and at least for a little bit i felt as though the combat sequences were actually pretty sweet in the way that he (again) calmly overpowers a large group of people by various means, most of which are silent.
So yeah, that is the story. I am sure you can fill in the blanks because there is literally nothing unique about this movie at all. Additional problems that I had with it.
cops are corrupt, i get it. But the amount of gunshots that are fired and no police respond to it in this movie is completely unrealistic. I once fired a shotgun behind my house, into the sky, just to check to make sure it worked and within 5 minutes the cops were all over the place.
I understand that Denzel's character is a bad ass but if a bunch of highly trained dudes that are completely outfitted with military weaponry and they descend on one guy who has access to only the supplies in the hardware store? The guys with the weapons win, regardless of your training or how familiar you are with the shop.
This is kind of building on what i just said but Denzel is a bit too much of a bad-ass in this. Too unstoppable. Even the main bad guy (who is presented as a bad-ass himself) is EASILY dispatched by Denzel in the movie.
Denzel has the most badass "cool guys don't look at explosions" in this movie as he walks away from an explosion that had to have resulted in hundreds of civilian deaths. I would have thought he would have a problem with that.
Overall, this movie is worth watching if you are in the mood for mindless entertainment that doesn't have the Rock in it. There is nothing new here - nothing at all. This is basically every Statham movie that has ever been made, just with visible receding hairline and no British accent.