We all know about Alonzo Harris (Training Day). Most of us know about Frank Lucas (American Gangster). Some of us even know Tobin Frost (Safe House). Add Troy Maxson to that list of vile characters portrayed by Denzel Washington. Okay, so the character he portrays in Fences (a movie he also directed) isn’t as bad as those depicted in the above films. He’s a different kind of evil. There is some good in Troy. He means well. But he is a complete hypocrite. He talks about doing right by others, providing for his family, and teaching them the importance of right over wrong. But in the end, Troy does only things that fill his massive ego. And in doing so, he hurts everyone who has ever cared for him.
Category Archives: Denzel Washington
The Magnificent Seven (2016)
I’m starting to think that Hollywood is either completely out of original ideas or knows that they are guaranteed a minimum hundred million dollars at the box office if it remakes a movie and has a starting cast of Hollywood A-listers. There is absolutely no reason why The Magnificent Seven needed to be remade. I have not seen the first one, but I imagine it was probably a pretty good movie when it was made…56 years ago. There have not been many great westerns produced in this century and, while they were good, most of them have been remakes (3:10 to Yuma, True Grit). There have been others (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, The Homesman). Still, there really haven’t been many in this genre of films when compared to others. While I appreciate a good western (Young Guns was my number one movie of all time from when I was 15 until I was about 25), I dislike a bad western just as much as I dislike a poor movie in other genres. And while I wouldn’t necessarily call The Magnificent Seven a poor movie, I definitely would call it an unneeded one. Unless you love westerns, there’s no need to see this movie. This absolutely is a movie that you don’t need to see on the big screen.
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The Equalizer (2014)
Man, The Equalizer was going very well through the first half. And then it unraveled. Denzel Washington (Training Day, Flight) was great, but this movie had many holes, most of which couldn’t have been avoided. Based on the television series of the same name. I was unaware that it even existed before the release of the film. This wouldn’t exactly be a show I would be watching when it aired between 1985-1989 (I was too busy watching shows like The Cosby Show, Family Ties, and Alf during that time). And I think I was offered a disservice by knowing nothing about the television show. It was inferred that those watching this movie had seen the television show, which was not the case. More important than the lack of knowledge of its lead character and how he got to be the way that he is would be the movie’s unevenness. How it starts is certainly not how it ends up. It’s an entertaining movie with Denzel taking out bad guys, but then again, so was home Alone with Macaulay Culkin doing the same.
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2 Guns (2013)
2 Guns is not my type of movie because it isn’t sure what it wants to be. It doesn’t take itself too seriously, but it contains relationships between the characters that seem meaningful. At times, it’s a terrible drama. At times, it’s a comedy that isn’t funny. At times, it’s a lame attempt at a shoot ’em up in Quentin Tarantino style. Its lead actors are all over the place. In short, it’s a movie that doesn’t know what it wants to be. It’s also a movie that wastes the talents of two great actors, Denzel Washington (Training Day, American Gangster) and Mark Wahlberg (Shooter, The Italian Job). It’s a little ironic because this was Washington’s first movie since his outstanding performance in Flight and the last movie Wahlberg shot before his outstanding performance in Lone Survivor. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s a movie that either of these actors wishes they had not done, but it is a movie that I wish they hadn’t done.
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Flight (2012)
For as terrific an actor as Denzel Washington is (and he is one of the absolute best), he makes many movies. And very often, he plays a cop or detective. As a result, some of these movies and his performances get lost in the shuffle. When I think of his performances in Unstoppable, The Taking of Pelham 123, Deja Vu, Man on Fire, and Out of Time, I think of one big blend. Outside of Man on Fire, the performances don’t stand out. And while his performance in Man on Fire is brilliant, it would have been better remembered had it not been lumped with these other, lesser, movies. With that said, his performance in Flight is one of his best performances and will be remembered for a long time.
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