FG Film Club - Wk28 2020 - The Equalizer 1 & 2

[GazzaGarratt 11,167]

Week 28 - July 13th to July 19th. Why not have 2 films eh? 😎

 

 

Equalizer 1 Trailer:

 

 

 

Equalizer 2 Trailer:

 

 

 

Both available on Netflix.

 

Let us know how you find them below 👍

[Greboth 2,726]

Noice 🙂 I really enjoyed the first one but never got around to watching the second.  Guess that changes this week 🙂

[techno 3,521]

I recently watched the first one as it's one of the film's I can watch multiple times but the second, so disappointing that I've only watched it once, maybe I should give it another go this weekend as I'm usually trawling for something to watch.

[phil bottle 9,957]

Watched the first one last night, I'll wait to watch the 2nd before I offer my tuppence [emoji106]

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[Greboth 2,726]

I ended up having a crazy busy weekend so watched 2 last night.  A little late but shhhhh still counts - Also spoilers duh!

 

The second film definitely isn't as enjoyable as the first and I think this is down to 2 reasons; the time it takes to get going and lack of connection to Susan.  In the first film, it has to set the scene of McCalls life, relations and routine and it does this well.  Yet, in the first 20 minutes, the first film still manages to the introduce the pivotal moment of Teri (Chloe Grace Moretz) ended up in the ICU as the motivational moment for McCall to after the Russian gangsters.  The second film though takes twice that for Susan to be killed which is where the film really starts.  I appreciate it needed to introduce Miles (Ashton Sanders) as someone for McCall to protect as well as set up the revenge story arc but it didn't need 40 mins of it.

 

To follow on from that, Teri and Miles serve the purpose of a younger character McCall feels the need to protect.  In the short 20 minute build up of the first, they establish an odd but close friendship between the two; Teri asking and McCall opening up a little about his dead wife, Teri giving McCall her demo CD for his opinion.  It quickly establishes a level of intamacy and trust between them.  Teri gets beaten up leading to McCall to seek revenge on the Russian gangsters but also, in killing them, protecting Teri, and by extension the other girls, from it from happening again.  With the second film however, Miles tries to fulfill that role but it doesn't work as well in my opinion.  They never share those intimate moments that the first film does so well and it comes across as McCall protecting Miles  simply because that's what McCall does and not because of any emotional reason.  Which leads on the revenge part of the plot, the friendship between McCall and Susan is better defined than with Miles which helps prop up the revenge angle.  Though where this falls down is it causes the second film to lack focus - the first is protect and revenge for Teri which allows McCalls actions to be cohesive and singular in their goal - everything he does is for Teri.  The second though splits this to protecting Miles and revenge for Susan.  This causes part of the film to only be about Miles (saving him from the gangsters) or Susan (originally going after his old team) - it isn't until the gunfight in the storm at the end of the film do these threads really come together.

 

Films with twists can have multiple threads that only come together right at the end of a film.  When done right (Shutter Island, Coherence etc.) the twist makes the first 90% of the film make more sense.  Characters actions that may have been disjointed have more impact now you know why, the twist brings an order to the chaos.  Maybe the second was going for the twist of it was his old crew all along but it was so obvious and predictable it just ended up being a cliche.