Denzel Washington refuses to let Liam Neeson run rampant and kick the underworld’s ass. The Equalizer reteams Washington with his Training Day Director: Antoine Fuqua. Washington escalates from quiet Denzel to full-fledged walking cyborg Denzel over the course of the Equalizer. He also turns a Home Depot into a Home Alone style shop of horrors for unnamed evil men.
Based on a TV series, The Equalizer is Robert McCall (Washington), a quiet-type who encourages the humble people around him as he happily works his little job in a hardware department store. He helps Ralphie (Johnny Skourtis) train to become a security guard, and he encourages lady of the night Teri/Elena (Chloe Grace Moretz) to quit her job and pursue things that make her happy. Robert’s quiet existences is upended when Teri’s pimp Slavi (David Meunier) beats her up and puts her in the hospital. Robert decides to take matters into his own hands and eliminate the reason Elena cannot move on with her life. However, Slavi happens to be the East Coast Russian mafia head, forcing Teddy (Marton Csokas) to come in and eliminate any threats to the business.
The Equalizer delivers on what you’re paying to see. Denzel Washington gets several chances to preach and be montaged as the larger than life the actor has become. Cheesy dialogue is embraced: a character feels trapped until Washington says “Change your world” as if they never thought to do that before. McCall’s OCD is hilarious when predicting how long it would take to disarm a room of bad guys, and then scolding himself for going over time. Past the half way point, character is basically abandoned for one giant Denzel tour-de-force. The montages are basically parodies; of course Denzel is going to walk away from an explosion, but this explosion lasted around a minute, instead of one shot, giving multiple badass selfies of Robert McCall. The funniest happens near the end, involving a sprinkler system. The Equalizer is a textbook example of how to meet audience expectations, placing the supremely charismatic Washington front and center for the entire film and having him glower, preach, and kill with aplomb.
The Equalizer is also a textbook old school action film in the plot hole department. Boston police are exceedingly incompetent, as all these killings happen and not one police investigation occurs. Such an investigation would have given Denzel a chance to show how McCall can find a way out of a back-against-the-wall obstacle. Another classic: the character who shows up late in the proceedings to provide information on the bad guy. The early story about Robert helping his friends is abandoned to watch one man take down an entire ludicrous mafia ring. There is a lengthy battle in the Home Depot (about 10 min), more than enough time for a couple henchman to find McCall grappling with a bad guy and shoot him easily. As meticulous as Robert McCall is, he probably could have given some advice to Richard Wenk and the other writers about how to put some more thought into telling his life story.
Denzel Washington does his thing in The Equalizer. Those plot holes fall by the wayside thanks to Washington’s charm and screen presence. I was rooting along with everyone else as the explosions rippled and Denzel just walks away from them with indifference. Washington sells the OCD and motivational speech better than most actors in the business, and carries a smile and glower every other actor is jealous of. Chloe Grace Moretz doesn’t get enough to do as the heart of gold hooker Teri, but gives enough to spark McCall to launch his assault. David Harbour also doesn’t get enough screen time as a crooked cop. Bill Pullman and Melissa Leo enjoyed their hefty paycheck for 5 minutes of screentime. Marton Csokas has been asked to play a Russian baddie for years now and knows how to make himself look callous, calculating and evil but never upstaging Washington.
The Equalizer gets its name from a TV Series, but I think it means that Denzel now equals Liam Neeson in the action hero category. Neeson will sometimes foray into darker material, but Denzel’s star is too bright that no matter how bad the story, he can find a way to make it work. I look forward to more team ups with Fuqua, who knows how to sell Denzel and use all of his talents in the most satisfying ways for an audience member.