Tag: Denzel Washington

Inside Man: Most Wanted

2019   Universal Pictures

Rated:  R

Length:  1 hr  45min

Action ~ Crime ~ Drama ~ Thriller

Directed by:  M. J. Bassett

Starring:  Aml Ameen, Rhea Seehorn, and Roxanne McKee.

“The ultimate game of copycat and mouse.”

The movie starts out with American soldiers in 1945 Europe battling it out with German Soldiers in front of a farmhouse. They neutralize the Germans and open the barn doors to uncover a pallet full of wooden cases containing bars of Nazi Gold. Then we flash forward to New York City in the present day.  A group of criminals has taken over the Federal Bank of New York and is holding hostages. They force the bank manager downstairs to open up the holding areas where they keep all the gold. They force him to open up a room way in the back and we see the same pallet full of Nazi gold bars from Europe.

FBI Negotiator Brynn Stewart (Rhea Seehorn) is tapped to lead the response team along with NYPD Negotiator Remy Darbonne (Aml Ameen). They tap into the bank’s phone lines and call the criminals. Ariella Barash (Roxanne McKee) answers and insists that they call her “Most Wanted”. She demands that they disperse two armored vehicles to the front of the bank so that they can load the gold into them. Then they will take the vehicles to the airport where they will have a plane waiting for them. It seems like a simple robbery on a bank full of gold, but as we move forward, there are numerous plot twists that make this anything but that.

And the game of cat and mouse, or should I say copycat and mouse is on as the FBI, NYPD and Swat try to free the hostages, figure out the criminals end game and keep the massive pile of gold from being stolen. It is a thrilling action crime drama with a mystery not solved until the very end. It is a movie centered around a bank robbery but it is much more than that. There are secrets and mysteries that are exposed that throw a different twist on the old bank robbery caper.

I have seen this countless times, whenever I see it listed on a platform I always watch it. It is one of my favorites. I sought it out this time because I found out that it was a sequel to the movie INSIDE MAN. I have seen INSIDE MAN numerous times too, but didn’t realize they were connected. I came across an article  about it while doing research for another movie. It explained how the two movies are connected in the storyline, how the story carries over into the sequel. I had no idea, but thinking about it it made sense. So I had to go back and watch them both with my new knowledge of the storyline.

It is a good movie, although I don’t think it is as good as the first. Close but definitely comes in second. Of course the absence of Denzel Washington and Clive Owen is noticeable. But this movie carries on after the events of the first movie and they are tied together. So I thought it was a good sequel, I had a better appreciation of the movie knowing they were related and how. I did really like Aml Ameen, Rhea Seehorn, and Roxanne McKee in this, I really liked their characters and thought they did a good job with them.

So that’s a yes for me, I would recommend watching INSIDE MAN first before INSIDE MAN: MOST WANTED. And I would recommend watching both of them, it’s a good little Duology.

Enjoy!

Inside Man

2006   Universal Pictures

Rated:  R

Length:  2 hr  8min

Crime ~ Drama ~ Mystery ~ Thriller

Directed by:  Spike Lee

Starring:  Denzel Washington, Clive Owen, Jodie Foster, Christopher Plummer, Willem Dafoe and Chiwetel Ejiofor.

“My name is Dalton Russell. Recently I planned and set in motion events to execute the perfect bank robbery……..”

Clive Owen stars as Dalton Russell, who in August 2005, leads a small group of criminals who hijack The Manhattan Trust Bank and hold everyone inside hostage. Denzel Washington stars as Detective Keith Frazier, who along with his partner Detective Bill Mitchell (Chiwetel Ejiofor) are assigned to the active situation. Willem Dafoe stars as Captain John Darius with the NYPD Emergency services Unit who has set up the perimeter and command center at the Bank. They set up phone communication within the bank solely through the commander center and wait to hear from the Bank robbers.

Christopher Plummer stars as The Founder and Chairman of The Board of Manhattan Trust Bank Arthur Case. This branch is the original Manhattan Trust Bank and also the biggest. Arthur is very nervous about the robbery and the men inside the bank because he has an unidentified security deposit box inside. He does not want them to get their hands on what is inside the box for fear it could ruin him. He makes a call to the most notorius “Fixer” in the city, Madeleine White (Jodie Foster), and she agrees to meet with him. Madeleine calls in a favor from the Mayor and gets him to let her into the active crime scene so she can negotiate with the bank robbers.

And the game of cat and mouse is on as the police and detectives try to negotiate with the bank robbers and figure out their motives and demands, and Madeleine and Arthur try to keep his secret hidden, and the robbers play hide and seek with the hostages as they do something different than bank robbers are expected to do in this situation. It is a thrilling crime drama with a mystery not solved until the very end. It is a movie centered around a bank robbery but it is much more than that. There are secrets and mysteries that are exposed that throw a different twist on the old bank robbery caper.

I have seen this countless times, whenever I see it listed on a platform I always watch it. It is one of my favorites. I sought it out this time because I found out that there was a sequel to this movie, INSIDE MAN: MOST WANTED. I have seen the sequel numerous times too, but didn’t realize they were connected. I came across an article  about it while doing research for another movie. It explained how the two movies are connected in the storyline, how the story carries over into the sequel. I had no idea, but thinking about it it made sense. So I had to go back and watch them with my new knowledge of the storyline.

It is a great movie. With Denzel Washington, Clive Owen, Jodie Foster, Christopher Plummer, Willem Dafoe and Chiwetel Ejiofor all at their best. It is funny at times as well. All the interrogation scenes were completely ad-libbed by the actors. Great job I’d say. Great story, great cast, great acting and a great movie. I am watching the sequel INSIDE MAN: MOST WANTED tonight.

If you haven’t seen it you’re missing out on a good one.

Highly Recommended!

The Equalizer 4 & 5

DENZEL WASHINGTON to film EQUALIZER 4 & 5!

There have been numerous rumors and speculation about Denzel Washington’s possible retirement from the Acting Business. Been there, done that and already being extremely particular about the projects he does take on, does make you wonder how much longer he will continue to make movies. Denzel just turned 70 years old last December, and has been acting for almost 50 years. He made his acting debut in the 1977 tv movie Wilma. He has been nominated and won numerous awards throughout his acting career.

When Denzel Washington and Director Antoine Fuqua made The Equalizer 3, they both stated that that was the end of the franchise. Denzel said they might decide to do another one, possibly a prequel, but he wouldn’t be in it. It is the end of the road for Robert McCall, he is tired of fighting and he found a place in Equalizer 3 he could call home and retire with a possible love interest in the quaint little Italian seaside town.

But according to an interview with Esquire Magazine dated November 19, 2024 Denzel Washington said:

“I told them we would do another Equalizer, and we’re doing 4 & 5. People are happy about that, they love those daggone Equalizers. But I’ve come to realize that they are for me too, because they’re for the people. They want me to get the bad guys. “We can’t get them so you go get them.” And I say…”Okay, I’ll go get them. Just wait right there and I’ll be right back.”

HURRY BACK DENZEL!

As of this date there is no other official word on Equalizer 4 & 5. Given that there were 4 and 5 years between the other two sequels, it will be quite some time before we do hear of any projected timeline for production. Equalizer 3 came out in 2023 so it might be 2027 or 2028 before we do see another Equalizer movie. It makes you wonder what the next Equalizer would look like.

Related Articles:

The Equalizer

The Equalizer 2

The Equalizer 3

THE EQUALIZER “100 BOOKS LIST”

THE EQUALIZER TRILOGY: STORY & TIMELINE

THE EQUALIZER TRILOGY: STORY & TIMELINE

Denzel Washington stars as Robert McCall, a Marine Special Forces Commando who faked his own death and is living a very quiet unassuming life in Boston, Massachusetts. He lives in a sparse apartment above a bar and works at Home Mart, a big box home improvement store. He has OCD (Denzel Washington had the idea to add OCD to Robert’s character and did research by talking to OCD patients and groups for the role) and often can’t sleep at night so he goes down to the local diner to have a cup of tea and read. He always meticulously wraps his own tea bag in his own napkin together with a spoon to take with him. Always sitting at the same table in the diner, and meticulously unfolding the napkin as a placemat. He is reading The 100 Books You Must Read Before You Die in tribute to his wife.

It is not clear what happened to his wife Vivienne although it is implied that she died from an illness. She was reading the 100 Books You Must Read Before You Die list and made it to 97 before she died. And Robert was making his way through the list in her honor. Robert faked his own death on a black ops mission so that he could marry Vivienne and spend his life with her in Brant Rock Beach, Massachusetts. She owned a bakery there and they lived in a beach house together (where Robert goes to in Equalizer II to battle his old crew at the end). After she died Robert couldn’t bear to be in the beach house nor sell it, so he got a small apartment in Boston and the job at Home Mart to keep him busy. Seeing people around him taken advantage of by criminals brings out his sense of right and wrong, and he can’t stay anonymous and ignore the military training that would allow him to help these people.

He wears a Suunto Core All Black Sports Watch (The Link is an Amazon Affiliate link where we earn a small commission that does not affect the retail price) complete with an Altimeter, Barometer, Compass, Temperature, Storm Alarm, sunrise/sunset times, stopwatch and a depth meter for underwater use. Given his military black ops background and his OCD he uses the watch timer to time everything throughout all three movies. How long he reads, how long he showers and how long it takes him to kill. After helping Alina get her freedom back from the Russian Crime Syndicate, Robert decides to use his commando talents to help people who find themselves in similar situations and help them overcome their unfortunate circumstances with the talents he possesses.

At the end of Equalizer I, he opens up his laptop at the diner and puts an ad on Craigslist (“Odds Against You? Need Help?”) looking for people he can help. In The Equalizer II he is carrying on in his anonymous goodwill missions with the help of his old DIA friend and colleague Susan Plummer. Susan has been assisting him by providing the intel he needs for his missions. His new job driving for LYFT gives him more opportunities to find people who need his help. Equalizer II opens with Robert in Turkey securing the release of a young girl kidnapped and he returns her anonymously to her mother, who we find out is the Bookstore owner where he has been ordering books for the 100 books list. Sam Rubenstein, a holocaust survivor who he gives LYFT‘s to, talks about a lost portrait from when he was young of his sister that he wants to find. Robert finds his sister instead and at the end of the movie you can see them reunited. And we find that Robert, having gone back to his old house he shared with Vivienne, has decided to move back into the house on the beach.

One of his LYFT passengers is a retired bricklayer named Greg Dyer. One day when Robert was giving him a LYFT, he complains to Robert about how a cyber-criminal robbed him of his Pension of $366,400. Robert tracks down the Cyber-Criminal to the vineyard in Sicily, Italy, where Equalizer III starts. He discovers while retrieving $366,400 cash for Greg Dyer’s lost pension that the vineyard was also a way station for illegal drugs. He calls Susan Plummer’s daughter, Emma Collins (Dakota Fanning), getting her number from the little black address book that used to belong to her mother. Robert was given the book by Susan’s husband after she was murdered in Equalizer II. Robert teaches and coaches Emma by helping her break up the Drug Ring. In the end he mails her the little black notebook with the note, Your mother would be proud.

Emma returns Greg Dyer’s $366,400 pension money to him in Boston, and goes on to get a promotion for her work thanks to Robert. It appears that Robert, having completely fallen for the people and the charming little Italian seaside town of Altamonte, and grown weary of the violence and life he has led, has decided to live a more peaceful life and stay there. And I can’t say as I blame him. And you can see that there is a spark of chemistry between Robert and the waitress in Altamonte that hints at Robert leaving the past and his wife’s memory behind, and finally seeing a future beyond it. This a great story and is well acted by Denzel Washington and the rest of the actors. You can see the closeness between Denzel and Dakota who have known each other a very long time. I loved Remo Girone as Enzo. Chloë Grace Moretz is also very likable as Alina.

You can watch all of these movies without watching any of the others, but I feel you miss a lot of the story by doing so.

I definitely recommend watching them in order to catch it all.

You might also like:

The Equalizer “100 BOOKS LIST”

The Equalizer

The Equalizer 2

The Equalizer 3

The Equalizer 4 & 5

The Equalizer “100 BOOKS LIST”

So I got hung up on this 100 book list.

In The Equalizer movies Denzel Washington (Robert McCall) is reading his way through the 100 books you must read before you die list in honor of his wife. I thought, “Well, it should be easy enough to find and write about for the movies. Could be interesting.”  WRONG!

Well interesting enough for me to chase it for way longer than I should have. But easy?  No, no and no.

There are hundreds of 100 book lists. A lot of them feature newer novels that I didn’t think seemed right. Robert’s list seemed to be more Classic novels than newer. So this is what I have come up with.

I count 30 books listed in the order you see them in the movies:

I)      The three he was reading in Equalizer I which he said was 91, 92, and 93

II)    The two he is reading in the beginning of Equalizer II, and the one he bought in the bookstore and said it was the last one (#100). He told Miles he should read the two Alexandre Dumas books and the rest of the list I pulled from stopping the screen in the movie when the bad guy is looking at the bookcase, in order from top to bottom and left to right. Obviously it is not all the books in the case, only the ones they showed and the ones I could read.

III)  In Equalizer III the only book shown in the film is THE HOLY BIBLE.

And lastly there is a list of 100 books from the Library 100. A list of the most popular novels from all the libraries around the world that seemed to include the most books from the movie than any other list I came across.

That’s it, that’s all I’ve got, and I’m done chasing the 100 books.

Bobby

THE EQUALIZER BOOKS LIST:

The Equalizer:

          91)   The Old Man And The Sea – Ernest Hemingway

         92)   Don Quixote – Miguel De Cervantes

         93)   The Invisible Man – Ralph Ellison

The Equalizer 2:

                  Between the World and Me – Ta-Nehisi Coates

                  Siddhartha – Herman Hesse

       100)  In Search Of Lost Time – Marcel Proust

                 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas

                 The Count Of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas

                 The Grapes Of Wrath – John Steinbeck

                 The Catcher In The Rye – J.D. Salinger

                 The Complete Works Of O. Henry – Doubleday/Volume I

                 Native Son – Richard Wright

                 The Double Helix – James D. Watson

                 Black Power – Richard Wright

                 Moby Dick – Herman Melville

                 The Portrait Of A Lady – Henry James

                 Saphira And The Slave Girl – Willa Cather

                 Brave New World Revisited – Aldous Huxley

                 A Bend In The River – V. S. Naipaul

                 The Trial – Frank Kafka

                 A Second Treasury Of Kahil Gabran

                 The Complete Short Stories of W. Somerset Maugham I

                 The Complete Short Stories of W. Somerset Maugham II

                 The Divine Comedy I Inferno With Translation

                              And Commentary By John D. Sinclair – Dante

                 A  Canticle For Liebowitz – Walter M. Miller Jr.

                 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell

                A Stranger In A Strange Land – Robert Heinlein

                The Betrothed – Alessandro Manzoni

                The Pit – Frank Norris

                HOLY BIBLE

The Equalizer 3:

                HOLY BIBLE

You might also like:

THE EQUALIZER TRILOGY: STORY & TIMELINE

The Equalizer

The Equalizer 2

The Equalizer 3

The Equalizer 4 & 5