Progress, not perfection.

His name is Mr. Nieves.

He's a pretty big guy, tall, built like a stone pillar, but quite possibly the nicest man you could ever meet. Which makes sense, because he's our guidance counselor, routinely dropping everything to help someone in need, perceived or otherwise. Whenever you see him, he's greets you with a firm handshake and a relaxed smile (though it's hard to lock down the shape of his mouth, as half of it is ensconced in the most epic of mustaches), and the two minutes you might spend with him are the best two minutes. 

So, obviously, he's a trained assassin.

Oh, that sounds ridiculous to you? Well, maybe you haven't been watching action movies since...well, forever. But I have, so I'm pretty sure the nice, older guy at your office could pretty much kill an entire army of angry foreigners without un-tucking his immaculately ironed dress shirt.

Late to the party, though arriving with an overwhelming sense of deja-vu, I recently checked out 2014's The Equalizer starring an always stellar Denzel Washington. Seemingly regarded with a certain fondness, and enthusiastically recommended to me by my cinematically joyless father, I'm not sure what took me so long. I mean, I love it when droves of people are murdered in the name of doing the right thing. All that senseless death? It's what gives me life.

Denzel plays Robert McCall, easily the best employee at a (not) Lowe's somewhere in Boston. When he's not making the world a better place one solid at a time, he finds himself at the local diner, having coffee and reading classic literature because of course he would. He has befriended a lady of the evening, and even if you know ol' Bob doesn't approve of this young girl's poor life choices, who is he to judge? But when some f--ker roughs her up, well, turns out it's buy-one, get-one on bad ideas.

Even if you haven't seen The Equalizer, you have, and it's f--king fantastic. These kinds of movies are always inherently silly (and totally pointless), but with Mr. Washington steering the ship, you simply can't go wrong. Maybe Liam Neeson has ran ashore, but Denzel isn't anywhere near washed up. This f--king guy, like Bob, can simply do anything. I mean, who's going to tell him he can't? Not me. I like my head without nails in it.

If I was a fat guy outside in a limo, I'd probably stop whatever shitty thing I was doing immediately.

Speaking of things I can't stop from happening, here are the Yays and Boos. All three of us had no idea that this was the first series with a sequel Denzel Washington had ever appeared in, but that's probably because Fences [review] felt like a goddamned trilogy when we saw it.

I wonder is this lady is a prostitute?

Yaaaaaaaaaaaay!

• Oh, Boston. It was sure nice seeing you again...even if it's on a TV screen in my basement.
• I love how these guys always have immaculate houses. Like, they can bash a dude's head in with a rusty pipe, but god forbid their place setting is slightly askew.
• Whoa, whoa...whoa. Pops was a Pip?
• I'm sorry, there is no situation where a guy putting his hands on a lady is laugh out loud funny, but when these f--kers get rough with Chloe Grace Moretz directly in front of Bob, I basically burst out laughing. Guys, you know how this ends, right?
• Usually, a seemingly endless supply of euro-trash dudes aren't something to cheer about. Usually.
• Is there anything better (in a movie like this) than when the 'good' guy heads to the door seemingly to leave, and then he just f--king locks it and turns around like he's done this 900 times before? Short answer: nope.
• It might have sucked for Little John, sure, but while that f--ker was getting beat to death in his own office, pretty sure I heard the Red Sox win a game in the ninth. Shit, you guys, fictitious Boston victories might be all I get this season so back off.
• The fact that his one friend (the security guard dude) is also being treated poorly makes about zero (/perfect) sense, yeah, but how great was it when Bob handled those two pricks?
• I'm not sure how Denzel did it with a straight face, but holy shit, HE RETURNED THE MALLET TO THE SHELF. 
• Wait, was that former President Bill Pullman? 
• No bullshit, Bob literally blows up Boston and walks away like what else was he supposed to be doing on a Tuesday night? (seriously, how does a filmmaker sincerely include a no-look slo-mo walk toward the camera while the world is blowing up in the background and not feel like an asshole?)
• And finally, the final showdown in Not Lowe's is something that needs to be experienced in times like these. Bob is seemingly a pretty caring guy, but he absolutely goes full Jason Voorhees on these motherf--kers. A tree-pruner, a nail-gun, a microwave full of chemicals, all fine. But the  f--king drill through a guy's head? Bob, you...uh...you okay?

The face you make when you realize your equal parts
Jude Law, Kevin Spacey and Clive Owen.

Booooooooooo!

• Did he just put a corkscrew thing through the bottom of a guy's mouth? [they show it again] Stop it. I asked out of disbelief, not for clarity, you f--kers.
• Oh, and that whole ass-kicking scenario, that took 28 seconds. But it will take me twenty-eight years to unsee.
• I have to be honest with you, friends, after the above incident? I stopped the movie. Not because I was horrified, but I had to see how much time was left. I mean, Bob got his revenge. The bad guy was dead. What are we gonna do for the next 90 minutes?
• Enter David Harbour, looking like he's eleven and sporting a pretty dicey Boston accent (both things not working in his favor).
• Also enter Teddy, pictured above, as the main bad guy, the fixer, and he is a top-shelf a-hole. The joy in these guys is always in the fact that they refuse to ever believe how absolutely f--ked they are.
• Anyone else ever notice the only time you see someone on a Sony laptop, is in a Sony movie?
• Does Bob have two houses? Cause that little misdirection in the bathroom smelled like bullshit.
• Sweet jesus, does anyone in the history of film production know how to use Photoshop? For f--k's sake, these old photos are impressively shitty. I'd rather look at a real photo of a dude that doesn't even look like Denzel, then some poorly cobbled together pic of Denzel's head on some out-of-shape white dude's torso.
• Bob has got some serious game, for sure, but I think there's a point where he's operating a car's windows by remote control and I flatly reject that as being quickly possible.
• I swear Bob heated up a door handle Home Alone style and didn't use it. Am I wrong?
• And finally, the actual ending. Not the one that should have ended the movie, but the legit last five minutes of the film. It's basically Meanwhile...in Moscow... and it's just absurd. Sure, we've gone way off the deep end at this point, but this quick scene has the deft and nuance of a Saw sequel Oh, I'm not saying it wasn't hilarious, but if Denzel had turned to the camera and revealed one red T-800 eye (or morphed into Edward Furlong T-1000 style) I wouldn't have been shocked even a little bit.

We actually had our first all-staff meeting today on Zoom since schools were closed and it was shockingly great to see everyone. Well, almost everyone. Mr. Nieves was logged on, but his camera was turned off.

Hmm. Maybe he had to, um, provide some guidance to some unsavory types?