EQUALIZER 3 : Tuesday 5th September 2023.

I saw the MA15+ Rated 'THE EQUALIZER 3' at my local independent movie theatre this week, and this American action thriller film is Directed and Co-Produced by Antoine Fuqua and is the sequel to 2018's 'Equalizer 2' and the third and final instalment in the 'Equalizer' trilogy. Those first two films, also Directed by Antoine Fuqua grossed US$383M off the back of combined production budgets of US135M, and is loosely based on the TV series which ran for a total of eighty-eight episodes over four seasons from 1985 through until 1989 and starred Edward Woodward as the titular Equalizer, Robert McCall. This film has so far grossed US$75M from a production budget of US$70M since its release last week, and has generated mixed or average reviews. Earlier last month, Antoine Fuqua is reported to have commented that there have been discussions to develop a prequel movie detailing the origins of Robert McCall, and later that while internally talks were had about this being the final film chronologically, he would be interested in returning as Director for a future instalment if Denzel Washington was interested in returning to the role. 

The film opens with a drone shot of a Land Rover driving along country lanes in Sicily surrounded by row upon row of grape vines, until the car pulls up outside a secluded winery. Out steps Lorenzo Vitale (Bruno Bilotta), leaving his young son in the passenger seat, having first retrieved his revolver from the glove box. Vitale is greeted by another man, carrying a semi-automatic weapon who tells him that he was ordered to wait outside. Vitale gingerly makes his way in the through door and down into the depths of the winery stepping over numerous dead bodies along the way, who have all seemingly died very violent deaths. Sitting in the basement is Robert McCall (Denzel Washington, who also Co-Produces here) held captive by two of Vitale's henchmen. McCall gives Vitale nine seconds to consider his options before all hell breaks loose and McCall kills the three surviving henchmen and finishes off a badly injured Vitale with a bullet to the head. McCall then removes a bunch of keys from Vitale's belt to gain access to the winery's vault and recoup money stolen in a cyber-heist (the reason he is there which is revealed later). 

On leaving the winery however, McCall is shot in the back by Vitale's young son. Slumping down on a step after the boy has fled, he considers suicide due to his injury, but instead takes the ferry back to the mainland. Later that night, McCall's car is seen pulled over somewhere on the Amalfi Coast with the lights on, and the drivers door wide open with McCall unconscious from shock. He is found and rescued by Gio Bonucci (Eugenio Mastrandrea), a local Carabiniere, who takes him to Altamonte, a remote coastal Italian town, where he is treated by the local doctor Enzo Arisio (Remo Girone) who removes the .22 calibre bullet, and stitches McCall back up. 

McCall makes a steady albeit slow recovery, having to use a walking cane and initially struggling to use the stairs, but, he is determined to get his previous strength back. He becomes acquainted with the townsfolk, including a waitress named Aminah (Gaia Scodellaro), and becomes fond of the town and its people. He makes an anonymous phone call to CIA Agent Emma Collins (Dakota Fanning) to tip her off about the winery's role in the illegal drug trade under the guise of day to day business transactions in Sicily. Collins and other CIA operatives including her superior officer Frank Conroy (David Denham) later arrive at the winery and find millions in cash along with bags of Captagon tablets hidden inside hundreds of fake wine bottles within a storeroom, confirming McCall's suspicions. She later tracks down McCall at his local cafe, who is evasive about his identity. She tells him that he is a 'person of interest' in her investigations, to which he replies that he's just an 'interesting person'. 

In the meantime, members of the local Camorra clan harass and kill villagers in an attempt to coerce them out of their housing and take over Altamonte for the purpose of building hotels, resorts and casinos in the coastal town. McCall overhears Marco Quaranta (Andrea Dodero), a high-ranking Camorra member, beat up a local seafood storeowner named Angelo (Daniele Perrone) for payments when he is unable to make his weekly dues. To make an example, the Camorra firebomb Angelo's fish store as the townsfolk attempt to douse the flames and watch on. Bonucci reviews video of the firebombing and places a call in to Italian central Police with an inquiry on the van involved. He is later attacked by the Camorra in his own home while his wife and two young daughters are forced to watch on held at gunpoint. Later, while McCall is having dinner at a local restaurant, Marco and two of his henchmen burst in and demand that Bonucci, who is also dining with his family, set up a boat for them. Overhearing them, McCall requests Marco to move their operations to a someplace else, however, when Marco refuses, McCall kills him and his goons outside in a quiet street.

The Naples' head of Police is threatened and tortured by Marco's brother and head of the local clan Vincent (Andrea Scarduzio) to find who killed him. Vincent has Collins' car rigged with a bomb, but she narrowly escapes with non-life threatening injuries after McCall warns her. Vincent later threatens to shoot Bonucci in front of the entire town if McCall doesn’t reveal himself. McCall does, but before Vincent can kill him, the gathered townsfolk begin to record the unwinding scenario on their mobile phones, causing Vincent and the rest of the Camorra clan to flee, as Police sirens are heard approaching. Later that night, McCall stealthily infiltrates Vincent's heavily guarded home and one by one executes his henchmen leaving Vincent to last but not before he has seen the extent of the carnage that McCall has bestowed upon his home. He binds Vincent to a pillar with wire around his neck and his hands and forcible feeds him a handful of the Captagon tablets. When Vincent comes around already foaming at the mouth McCall undoes his bindings and tells him he has six minutes to live before the overdose kills him. Vincent stumbles to his legs and drags himself out of his home and into the streets before finally falling on his back and succumbing to the very drugs he peddles. 

McCall later visits Collins in hospital with a back pack containing US$366,400 in cash that he had previously retrieved from the winery, saying that it is for an elderly couple living in Boston who had their life's pension fund hacked at the touch of a button, leaving them with nothing. Later Collins, visits that couple and delivers the back pack containing the cash. Back in Langley, Virginia, Collins receives a promotion for her role in ending the Altamonte drug trade. With the Quaranta brothers dead, McCall celebrates with the locals after their team wins a football game. 

With 'The Equalizer 3' Director and Co-Producer Antoine Fuqua has delivered another offering in this franchise that follows a similar well trodden formula to its two predecessors, but this time switches the setting from Boston, Massachusetts to the Amalfi Coast in southern Italy. Apart from that one glaring factor, very little has changed from the previous two offerings, except that Washington has grown older, wiser and still has the ability to dispense with them bad dudes with violent aplomb in all manner of brutal ways, and, turn on the charm and the emotion when its warranted. The mid-section of the film labours a little while McCall hobbles about with the aid of a walking cane and gradually recuperates while under the watchful eye of Fanning's Collins, but is book ended by two scenes of graphic violence that show off McCall's very particular set of skills that he uses to unflinching effect to dispense with them pesky baddies. And in the closing scene all is good in the world, as Collins gets the promotion, and McCall is embraced by the locals in his new Italian home on the south coast. A fitting end to a fairly predictable run of the mill third instalment that is rescued by Washington's gravitas.

'The Equalizer 3' merits three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

What's new in Odeon's this week : Thursday 31st August 2023.

The 80th Venice International Film Festival kicked off on Wednesday 30th August and runs through until Saturday 9th September. The aim of the Festival is to raise awareness and promote international cinema in all its forms as art, entertainment and as an industry, in a spirit of freedom and dialogue. The Festival also organises retrospectives and tributes to major figures as a contribution towards a better understanding of the history of cinema.

This years Opening Film will be 'Comandante' from Italy and Written and Directed by Edoardo De Angelis and telling the story of an episode during the Battle of the Atlantic, when the Italian submarine Comandante Cappellini sunk the Belgian ship Kabalo, and Cappellini's commander Salvatore Todaro decided to disobey orders and to rescue the Kabalo's crew, being forced to navigate in emersion for three days, making the ship an easy target for enemies. The Closing Film is 'Society of the Snow' from Spain, Uruguay and Chile and Co-Written and Directed by J.A. Bayona and is about the Uruguayan 1972 Andes flight disaster. 

This years main competition is presided over by Damien Chazelle, aided by other members of the jury including Jane Campion, Mia Hansen-Love, Martin McDonagh and Laura Poitras. Those films selected for the main international competition, of which there are twenty-three titles this year, include :-

* 'Comandante' - from Italy and Written and Directed by Edoardo De Angelis.

* 'Dogman' - from France, this action drama film is Written and Directed by Luc Besson. World Premiere.

* 'Ferrari' - from the USA, this biographical drama film is Co-Produced and Directed by Michael Mann with Adam Driver, Penelope Cruz, Shailene Woodley, Jack O'Connell and Patrick Dempsey. World Premiere.

* 'The Killer' - from the USA, this psychological action thriller is Directed by David Fincher and stars Michael Fassbender, Charles Parnell, Arliss Howard and Tilda Swinton. World Premiere.

* 'Maestro' - from the USA, this biographical drama film is Co-Written, Co-Produced, Directed and stars Bradley Cooper as the famed American conductor, composer, pianist, music educator, author, and humanitarian Leonard Bernstein, who died in 1990 aged 72, with Carey Mulligan as his Costa Rican Actress wife Felicia Montealegre, Maya Hawke as Jamie Bernstein and Sarah Silverman as Shirley Bernstein. World Premiere.

* 'Memory' - from Mexico and the USA, this drama film is Written, Co-Produced and Directed by Michel Franco and stars Jessica Chastain, Peter Sarsgaard and Merritt Wever. World Premiere.

* 'Origin' - from the USA and Written for the screen, Co-Produced and Directed by Ava DuVernay and stars Aunjanue Ellis, Jon Bernthal, Vera Farmiga, Nick Offerman and Connie Neilsen. World Premiere.

* 'Poor Things' - from Ireland, the UK and the USA and Co-Produced and Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, and stars Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, Willem Dafoe, Christopher Abbott, Margaret Qualley and Jerrod Carmichael. World Premiere.

* 'Priscilla' - from the USA and is Written for the screen, Co-Produced and Directed by Sofia Coppola and stars Cailee Spaeny as Priscilla Presley and Jacob Elordi as Elvis Presley. World Premiere.

Italian Director Liliana Cavani and Hong Kong Actor Tony Leung Chiu-wai will both receive the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement during the festival.

Foe all the details of the other film strands and awards being presented at this years 80th Venice International Film Festival, you can go to the official website at : https://www.labiennale.org/en/cinema/2023

This week with seven new movies to tempt you out to your local big screen Odeon there is sure to be something for everyone in this weeks line up, kicking off with the third and final offering in this vigilante action thriller that sees our titular hero retired to Southern Italy where he must take on the Sicilian mob in order to protect his new found friends. Next up we have a horror comedy offering based on a popular theme park ride that sees a woman and her son enlist a motley crew of so-called spiritual experts to help rid their home of supernatural squatters. This is followed by a romantic drama film about a reunion between two childhood friends as they contemplate their relationship and their own lives. Then we turn to a German offering that sees emotions run high as a group of friends gather in a holiday home by the Baltic Sea as the parched forest around them catches fire. Following this, a retired sea captain and his daughter must reassess their strained relationship after he begins a new romance with a widowed housekeeper. And we close out the week with a pair of documentaries - the first from France that follows patients and caregivers at a psychiatric centre with a unique floating structure located in the middle of the River Seine in central Paris; and the second an Aussie doco about a legend of the Australian music scene who formed his own record label in 1972 and went on to promote local, national and international music artists to the world right up to his passing aged 68 in 2021.

Whatever your taste in big screen film entertainment is this week - be it any of the seven latest release new films as Previewed below, or those doing the rounds currently on general release or as Reviewed and Previewed in previous Blog Posts here at Odeon Online, you are most welcome to share your movie going thoughts, opinions and observations by leaving your relevant, succinct and appropriate views in the Comments section below this or any other Post. We'd love to hear from you, and in the meantime, enjoy your big screen Odeon outing during the coming week.

'THE EQUALIZER 3' (Rated MA15+) - this American action thriller film is Directed and Co-Produced by Antoine Fuqua and is the sequel to 2018's 'Equalizer 2' and the third and final instalment in the 'Equalizer' trilogy. Those first two films, also Directed by Antoine Fuqua grossed US$383M off the back of combined production budgets of US135M, and is loosely based on the TV series which ran for a total of eighty-eight episodes over four seasons from 1985 through until 1989 and starred Edward Woodward as the titular Equalizer, Robert McCall. 

Here then, Robert McCall (Denzel Washington reprising his role from the previous two instalments and who also Co-Produces here), since giving up his life as a Government assassin, moves to Southern Italy to escape from the horrifying things he's done in the past, but later discovers that his new friends are under the control of the Sicilian Mafia crime bosses. As events turn deadly, Robert unleashes his very particular set of skills to protect his new friends. The film also stars Dakota Fanning and David Denman, and is released Stateside this week too. 

'HAUNTED MANSION' (Rated PG) - is an American supernatural horror comedy film Directed by Justin Simien in only his third feature film making outing following his debut in 2014 with 'Dear White People' and then 'Bad Hair' in 2020. This is the second cinematic adaptation of Walt Disney's theme park attraction 'The Haunted Mansion' following the 2003 film of the same name which although it was panned by critics at the time grossed US$183M off the back of a production budget of US$90M. This film has however, done the opposite garnering mixed reviews and having so far grossed US$80M off the back of a US$157M production budget making it a Box Office failure. Here then, a recently-widowed doctor Gabbie (Rosario Dawson) and her son Travis (Chase W. Dillon) move from New York into Gracey Manor, New Orleans with the view of turning it into a bed and breakfast, only to learn that it is haunted with ghosts. Gabbie hires a tour guide, a psychic, a priest and a historian to help exorcise her newly bought mansion. Also starring LaKeith Stanfield, Owen Wilson, Danny DeVito, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jared Leto and Tiffany Haddish.

'PAST LIVES' (Rated M) - this American romantic drama film is Written and Directed by Celine Song in her feature film Directing debut. The film saw its World Premiere at the Sundance Film Festival toward the end of January this year and was released in the US in early June having received universal critical acclaim and so far grossing US$11M at the Box Office. Nora and Hae Sung, two deeply connected childhood friends, are separated after Nora's family emigrates from South Korea. Some twenty years later, they are reunited in New York for one fateful week as they confront notions of destiny, love, and the choices that make a life. Starring Greta Lee as the adult Nora, Teo Yoo as the adult Hae Sung and John Magaro as Arthur, Nora's husband. 

'AFIRE' (Rated MA15+) - this German drama film is Written and Directed by Christian Petzold who made his feature film Directorial debut in 2000 with 'The State I Am In' and he would follow this up with the likes of 'Yella' in 2007, 'Jerichow' in 2008, 'Transit' in 2018 and 'Undine' in 2020. This film won the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize at the Berlin International Film Festival, where it had its World Premiere in late February this year before its release in Germany at the back end of April, having generated universal critical acclaim and US$1.5M so far at the Box Office. In a holiday cottage on the Baltic Sea not far from Ahrenshoop in north east Germany in a hot, dry summer, a group of four friends get together. There is a forest fire nearby and slowly and unnoticeably they are enclosed by the walls of flame. Trapped, they get closer, and then the desire, love and sex overtakes them. 

'MY SAILOR, MY LOVE' (Rated PG) - is a Finnish, Irish and Belgian Co-Produced drama film Directed by Klaus Haro whose prior feature film credits include 'Elina' in 2003, 'Mother of Mine' in 2005, 'Letters to Father Jacob' in 2009 and 'The Fencer' in 2015. Howard (James Cosmo), a retired sea captain and widower lives in a house by the sea and refuses any help from his adult daughter Grace (Catherine Walker). When she hires Annie (Brid Brennan) as domestic help for him, the reclusive and stubborn Howard unexpectedly falls in love. Grace has her own crisis to unravel and finds her father's romance difficult. Annie must face the complex father-daughter relationship, while Howard and Grace must realise their own imperfections. The film has generated largely positive critical reviews. 

'ON THE ADAMANT' (Rated MA15+) - this French language documentary film is Directed and photographed by Nicolas Philibert. It won the Golden Bear at this years Berlin International Film Festival, where it saw its World Premiere at the end of February this year. The film is a portrait of the L'Adamant Day Centre in Paris, France - a floating building located at the foot of the Charles de Gaulle Bridge on the right bank of the River Seine. The unique daycare centre welcomes adults with mental disorders and offers patients a daily routine that is structured in terms of time and space and helps them to regain their footing in everyday life with therapeutic workshops and psychosocial rehabilitation support. The Adamant team consists of psychiatrists, psychologists, nurses, occupational therapists, specialist educators, psychomotor specialists, care coordinators, hospital staff, and various external artists and art therapists. The film has received generally favourable reviews and was released in its native France in mid-April.

'EGO : THE MICHAEL GUDINSKI STORY' (Rated M) - is an Australian documentary film Directed by Paul Goldman whose prior feature film credits take in his debut in 2002 with 'Australian Rules' which he would follow up with the likes of 'All the Way' in 2003, 'Suburban Mayhem' in 2006 plus a bunch of music videos for Jason Donovan, Kylie Minogue, Danii Minogue, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds and Ross Wilson, and a couple of music doco's since. This film charts the life and times of Michael Gudinski who was an Australian record executive and promoter and a leading figure in the Australian music industry. In 1972 he formed the highly successful Australian record company Mushroom Records through which he signed several generations of Australian musicians and performers ranging from MacKenzie Theory, the Skyhooks, The Choirboys, Kylie Minogue, and New Zealand's Split Enz to newer artists such as Eskimo Joe, Evermore and others. The film includes commentary from Kylie Minogue, Dave Grohl, Sting, Jimmy Barnes, Ed Sheeran, Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel. Gudinski was considered to be 'one of the most significant and powerful players' in the Australian music landscape. The film saw its World Premiere showcasing at the Melbourne International Film Festival earlier this month. Gudinski died on 2nd March 2021, aged 68.

With seven new release movie offerings this week to tempt you out to your local Odeon, remember to share your movie going thoughts with your other like minded cinephile friends afterwards here at Odeon Online. In the meantime, I'll see you sometime somewhere at your local Odeon in the week ahead.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-