MOVIE REVIEWS - The Equalizer

DIRECTOR Antoine Fuqua, who guided Denzel Washington to the Oscar podium in Training Day, reunites with the charismatic actor for this gratuitously violent reimagining of the beloved 1980s TV series.
Denzel Washington in The EqualizerDenzel Washington in The Equalizer
Denzel Washington in The Equalizer

Nostalgic memories of Edward Woodward’s refined approach to justice and crime-fighting on the small screen are blown to smithereens by this brutish, big-screen rendering of The Equalizer.

In a dizzying opening fight sequence, Washington impales a corkscrew in one henchman’s noggin and repeatedly pummels a couple more as if he was tenderising a large slab of steak.

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Each bone-cracking blow, stab and punch is captured in balletic close-up; a queasy dance of death that reaches a hilarious and frenetic crescendo with drills and sledgehammers in a hardware warehouse where the title character works when he’s not coolly doling out just desserts.

Denzel Washington in The EqualizerDenzel Washington in The Equalizer
Denzel Washington in The Equalizer

Screenwriter Richard Wenk, who co-wrote The Expendables 2 with Sylvester Stallone, comes perilously close to the tongue-in-cheek tone of that film when Washington is asked by a work colleague how he hurt his bandaged hand and he drolly responds, “I hit it on something stupid”.

Robert McCall (Washington) has turned his back on his past as a covert government operative and has fashioned an unremarkable life in suburbia, where he nurses memories of his dead wife.

By day, he earns a decent wage in a Home Mart warehouse and mentors another employee, Ralphie (Johnny Skourtis), through his security guard’s exam.

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By night, McCall works his way through a list of 100 books everyone should read while enjoying a coffee at his local diner, where he befriends a sassy prostitute called Teri (Chloe Grace Moretz).

When she ends up in hospital, battered and bruised at the hands of her controlling Russian pimp Slavi (David Meunier), McCall exacts revenge.

Justice seemingly prevails.

Unfortunately, Slavi and his goons are a link in a bigger chain controlled by the Russian Mafia and they dispatch sadistic fixer Teddy (Marton Csokas) to track down McCall.

The Equalizer starts off promisingly, exploring the minutiae of McCall’s daily life as a man scarred by grief and tormented by his past.

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Washington is in his element in these early scenes, capturing the maelstrom of emotions that simmer beneath his character’s placid surface.

Once the first drop of blood is spilt, director Fuqua seizes every opportunity for wanton carnage, to the point that it seems like nothing short of a nuclear explosion will stop McCall in his tracks.

Csokas’ vindictive antagonist has little depth beyond his propensity for cruelty and pain, which is something we experience as the running time drags unnecessarily into a third hour.

My rating 7/10

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