#42 & 43: EQUALIZER 3 & SOUND OF FREEDOM

                    

 
Equalizer 3

Starring Denzel Washington, Dakota Fanning, David Denman, Sonia Ammar and Remo Girone. Written by Richard Wenk. Directed by Antoine Fuqua. Running time 109 minutes. Budget $70 million.

I have decided to review both of these together because I saw them as a double bill and it felt right to do so. 

Both in a way feel like a throw back to the glory days of the 1980's Cannon movies and both of these films could easily have been made with then stars Charles Bronson in Equalizer 3 and Chuck Norris in Sound of Freedom.

Of the two, Equalizer 3 is the most enjoyable of the two and the most enthusiastically over-the-top, whereas Sound of Freedom is an overly earnest and serious film with not one iota of lightness, perhaps because of its 'based on real life' and subject matter which let's be honest doesn't lend itself well to humour. 

Equalizer 3 finds its titular hero Robert McCall ("double 'c', double 'll'") still played by Denzel Washington recovering from a near-fatal gunshot injury following a seemingly successful and very brutal attack on the vineyard of an Italian Mafia operation, but why? All will finally be revealed. In between is McCall's slow recovery in a beautiful remote costal town which is struggling under the yoke of the Mafia who have plans to turn the town into a holiday resort and mean to oust the inhabitants. Trouble is McCall has finally found his home and has no intention of giving in to the savagely brutal antics of the Mafia's boss and his wayward brother who ends up dead prompting a bloody showdown between McCall and Vincent - the boss. 

This is a by-the-numbers action flick of the sort that Cannon used to churn out back in the 80s and it brought back many fuzzy warm feelings of delight and I was hooked. Slightly fumbling the ball in the third act the film manages to regain its footing and delivers a meaty ending and a reveal as to what brought McCall to Italy in the first place. The location of Altamonte is a welcome addition to the proceedings and that added to that Denzel's charisma and Antoine Fuqua's masterful action direction elevates this film to something deeply satisfying and enjoyable. 

8/10  

Sounds of Freedom

Starring Jim Caviezel, Mira Sorvino and Bill Camp. Written by Rod Barr and Alejandro Monteverde. Directed by Alejandro Monteverde. Running time 131 minutes. Budget $14.5 million.

Sounds of Freedom finds its hero, Tim Ballard (Jim Caviezel) - a Homeland Security Special Agent giving up his job, with 10 months to go before retiring, to rescue children kidnapped and trafficked by sex trafficking gangs in South America. Initially spurred into action by the kidnapping of a young brother and sister and at his wife's urging he heads off to Bogota and teams up with an ex-drug cartel accountant called Vampiro (Bill Camp) and a rich backer to set up a sting operation that ended up rescuing over 60 actual child slaves, the film in its closing credits shows actual footage from the police operation. 

It's an overly earnest and serious film that comes across deeply solemn and altogether far too ponderous. The camera appears to love long lingering close up shots of its handsome star as he emotes real tears that fill his eyes and flow almost at command, after the third go at this any power it has is lost. Bill Camp, who perhaps can't cry like his co-star, uses an endless supply of chewed up stumps of cigars as his acting tool pumping huge plumes of smoke into each scene, perhaps that's what set off Caviezel's crying?

Because the film is so desperate to remain truthful to its subject matter the build up the tropical island sting operation comes across all too pedestrian and loses all dramatic tension and ultimately you wish the film had been more of a documentary than a work of 'based on life' fiction. Ultimately the films pre credit info dump highlighting the shocking statistics of modern day child trafficking, the 5000% rise in online paedophila feels like an attempt to critic-proof the film and its personel message after the credits by Jim Caviezel himself feels deeply manipulative. 

Naturally in the Cannon version of this film, Tim Ballard would have been played by Chuck Norris and a lot more people would have had their teeth kicked out.

6/10