The Equalizer is a big-screen reimagining of the eighties television show (that starred veteran British actor Edward Woodward), which reunites Training Day director Antoine Fuqua with Denzel Washington.
It takes the basic concept of the series -- a vigilante out to right the wrongs committed against the innocent -- and "blockbusterizes" it.
The plot is simple and straightforward: Washington is Robert McCall, a former government operative now trying to lay low in Boston by living the working-class lifestyle and spending quiet nights reading in his local diner.
There, he befriends a young girl named Teri (Chloe Grace Moretz), who's been forced into prostitution by a gang of Russian mobsters. And when those same thugs savagely beat Teri within an inch of her life, McCall swings into action to avenge her, incurring the wrath of the Russian mob and a vicious enforcer named Teddy (Martin Csokas).
From my full review:
It takes the basic concept of the series -- a vigilante out to right the wrongs committed against the innocent -- and "blockbusterizes" it.
The plot is simple and straightforward: Washington is Robert McCall, a former government operative now trying to lay low in Boston by living the working-class lifestyle and spending quiet nights reading in his local diner.
There, he befriends a young girl named Teri (Chloe Grace Moretz), who's been forced into prostitution by a gang of Russian mobsters. And when those same thugs savagely beat Teri within an inch of her life, McCall swings into action to avenge her, incurring the wrath of the Russian mob and a vicious enforcer named Teddy (Martin Csokas).
From my full review:
3 out of 5. The Equalizer is an uber-violent revenge pic (think Quentin Tarantino by way of Tony Scott), but not much else. And aside from the broad strokes, it doesn't hold too much in common with its TV series namesake. Although Washington tries to convey the morality of his character, the film prefers to glorify the violence McCall inflicts on his opponents, making this highly-anticipated reteaming (between Fuqua and Washington) ring a little more hollow than it should.What ensues is as violently blood-soaked and gory as anything ever produced by Quentin Tarantino or Eli Roth, and Fuqua keeps the carnage coming with all the momentum of an express elevator to Hell, reveling in it right up until the film's penultimate moments. McCall pummels his opponents to a pulp, shoots them with their own guns, ensnares them with barbwire nooses, blows them to pieces and impales them with all manner of sharp objects (including corkscrews, shards of broken glass and power tools) — all in the build-up to his inevitable showdown with Teddy.
Of course, Teddy is intended as a worthy opponent — and something of a reflection — for McCall, a sneering villain whose own cold-blooded single-mindedness is meant to give us cause to believe that the odds don't necessarily fall in our protagonist's favor. But we see far too much evidence of McCall's gruesome efficacy to find that claim credible, even for a second. Every bad guy he encounters meets their grisly end within the blink of an eye (and if you doubt that, McCall always keeps a stopwatch handy, for measuring his prowess).
Other than the violence, however, there's precious little else to The Equalizer. Fuqua dresses up the razor-thin plot by screenwriter Richard Wenk (who also co-scripted The Expendables 2) with stylistic fluorishes that call to mind the signature visuals of Tony Scott, but it does little to hide the fact that the majority of the film is just biding time until the climactic confrontation.
Still, Washington does his best to bring some much-needed depth to his characterization. And when McCall's not exercising his firm belief in his A-B-K's (always be killing), he's either trying to motivate his friends to be the best versions of themselves they can be, indulging his obsessive-compulsive tendencies or grappling with the morality of his violent actions (though it's less about feeling remorse for committing murder and more about feeling guilty for breaking the promise he made to his dead wife not to be "that guy" again). It's all immaterial, though, because these little touches exist only to remind us that he's a human being, not just an unstoppable killing machine. Strip them away and you might as well just call him The Terminator.