THE WAY THINGS ARE

I love Denzel Washington and although I hate violence, I watched Equalizer 3. He’s showing his age, yet unlike some of his fellow elder actors, there is something believable in the big shoulders and the confident physical power of McColl, the quiet man who drinks his tea as if it were a Japanese tradition. ‘I’m neat.’ He declares, but only in his eating habits, he’s full-on smatter matter when he deals out the graphic justice villains deserve.

Lunatics have apparently taken over the asylum that is today’s hand-in-glove political and business world, with one questionable paragon of virtue nominating another of the same strain for a Nobel Peace Prize. The Justice League is an on-screen creation; perhaps it’s time for a real-life Justice League, or a hero like McColl to stand up for the downtrodden the political class have brazenly abandoned.

Gandhis and Mandelas, however, are rare breeds. The protection of all children from poverty and homelessness is not a priority for some governments. State neglect of youth in wealthy countries showcases a lack of empathy and deliberate procrastination over necessary spending.

Cognitively overloaded adults with read it/see it/forget it information feeds, where kids are concerned, need to think through some of what we accept, even those setting exams. Roisin Ingle is a popular Irish columnist, fighting cancer and raising bright daughters. She wrote of exam nerves and how hard her girls worked to achieve a good grade.

Shakespeare is on the study list and one of Ingle’s girls sees Portia, whose father tries to control her from the grave, as a feminist. Some girls are very aware of the gender-lopsided world they will face and fight as women. Ingle, a music-loving Mom, adds, Irish film director John Carney’s Drive It Like You Stole It from the film Sing Street is also on the curriculum, and says, she thought of the wonderful world we live in where Junior Cert English now includes Carney as well as Heaney, Ireland’s Nobel Poetry Prize winner.

Perhaps fogeyism has blinded me to a coded youth message here: “This is your life; you can go anywhere/You gotta grab the wheel and own it/You gotta put the pedal down/And drive it like you stole it.” I gather it’s telling a youngster not to be afraid, grab the initiative. But, considering the percentage of young people killed horribly on roads in traffic accidents due to speeding, why include a song advising youth to – put the pedal down and drive it like you stole it?

Football fans, endangered only by idiot hooligans who spoil the game for civilised folk, sang When You Walk Through a Storm, its message clear and encouraging. Old as that is, it would be a safer study song than the above, no matter how good the Broadway show, or the film version of Sing Street is.

Speaking of driving, one of the things I liked about Equalizer 3 was – thankfully – no beautiful cars being mangled in long, boring action movie car chases. Various Italian locations are lovely, the cast speak musical Italian, and islanders were willing to help a wounded, complete stranger while asking no questions. ‘You are where you’re supposed to be.’ As he heals, McColl feels attached to the place and the people, and when the local Mafia hurt and harm them, cold, calculated ferocity gleams in his eyes. Yet for the good folk, the Washington smile is supernova bright and beguiling.

Survival it’s said, is of the fittest, yet it isn’t always the physically fittest or tallest people that have the brightest minds or the creative talents to bring relief to a weary world where those with might and allowed licence can go anywhere, put the bombs down and act as if they own it even though they stole it. Decent people are sanctioned or imprisoned for telling the truth, liars everywhere are neither sanctioned nor confronted by justice. I’m holdin’ out for a hero Denzel; I can’t accept that we are where we’re supposed to be, someone has to fix it.