LAST WEEK WE WENT TO ONE of our favorite restaurants for dinner. Anyone we have taken there has agreed with us on how good everything is from food to service. After we were settled at our table, a family with two small children came in and were seated next to us. One child was in a highchair and the other one in a regular seat, though the table’s edge almost came up to his chest. I did not pay much attention to them except when the little boy was fussing and whining. Our waitress also handled their table and took their order right after ours. As a result, both of us received our dinner close together. I point this out because once the food arrived, I did not pay any mind to what was going on at their table, except to notice for two adults and two children they seemed to have ordered a lot of food. Views of the two kids were blocked by the people at our table and it was a good thing. They had finished and left before we did; I noticed the waitress was standing near their table and looking down at the floor. I leaned over just enough to see the unbelievable mess that the family left on the table and floor. It was disgusting and more so because I did not recall them moving over to try cleaning up the scraps of food strewn everywhere. It was disrespectful in my opinion; I get annoyed when people do not pick up after themselves in a public place.      I ENCOUNTERED SOMETHING SIMILAR ON my recent vacation. Here I was at a significant, iconic religious building and on the side of it someone had spraypainted graffiti. If that was not bad enough, after climbing up inside to the top of the building’s dome and walking out into the open, there was graffiti and people’s initials written along the walls. It was beyond disrespectful, simply appalling. Sadly, many places I visited in this international city had some type of markings and/or graffiti on its buildings. It felt like the city was being hijacked by these perpetrators. I was there to soak in the beauty and history of the place, and it seemed everywhere I was looking, I would find some type of markings or tags sprawled somewhere around a structure. I found all of it nearly incomprehensible; if I lived there and was in a position of authority, I would want to arrest the offenders and make them clean up their work. Because of this experience, I absolutely understood where the main character was coming from when he saw what was happening to the lovely town, he was residing in.      AFTER RECEIVING THE KINDNESS OF STRANGERS and settling into the idyllic town he found himself in, a former government assassin decided he must do something about the changes that were being forced on the townspeople. With Denzel Washington (The Book of Eli, The Tragedy of Macbeth) as Robert McCall, Dakota Fanning (The Secret Life of Bees, Man on Fire) as Emma Collins, Eugenio Mastrandrea (From Scratch-TV, La fuggitiva-TV) as Gio Bonucci, David Denman (13 Hours, Brightburn) as Frank Conroy and Gaia Scodellaro (Watch Them Fall; You, Me and the Apocalypse-TV) as Aminah; this latest installment in the action, crime thriller franchise had the perfect mix of drama and action. It did start out a little slow, but as the story unfolded it drew me in. I also have to say because I was just recently in the same areas on vacation; I absolutely loved the outdoor scenes of Italy. It seemed as if the action in this latest installment was boosted because there were many scenes of blood and violence. It was in a similar vein to the John Wick franchises’ type of violence. But because I loved the scenery and thought both Denzel and Dakota did such a good job, the violence did not distract from the competent and engaging script. 

3 stars