By Wayne C. Rogers
Directed by Antoine Fuqua
For me, The Equalizer, starring Denzel Washington was probably the best all around action movie of the year, just edging out John Wick with Keanu Reeves in it. The reason it beat out John Wick was because this is also a thinking man’s movie.
By that I mean Denzel Washington gives meaning to his character with just the simple expression of his eyes. He doesn’t have to say anything or do anything. You can actually tell he’s giving the situation some careful consideration before he moves into action such as when he first takes out Russian thugs in the office in back of the lounge. He opens the door of the office to leave two or three times, trying to make an important decision. It’s certainly a tough one to make. Should he kill the men in the room and then deal with the consequences, or just walk away and hope for the best? When the camera focuses on his eyes, you can see him thinking long and hard.
This is acting at its very best. There’s a reason why Denzel Washington has won two Oscars during his career, and it’s still a long ways from being over.
In The Equalizer, Denzel Washington plays Robert McCall, who works in a Home Depot-type of store, selling lumber and supplies for construction, or just fixing things around the house. At night he has trouble sleeping and visits the local diner where he has a cup of coffee and reads quietly to himself. It’s also the hangout for Teri or is it Elena, played exquisitely by Chloe Grace Moretz, a young prostitute who turns all of her money over to the Russian mafia. She’s inadvertently drawn to McCall because he treats her like a fellow human being and encourages her to better herself.
A limousine stops in front of them one night when Teri is kind of walking McCall home. Her boss gets out of the car, along with an armed driver, and forces her into the backseat. Even then you can see Denzel thinking, “Should I or shouldn’t I?” Teri attempts to resist, but they over power her and drive off. A few days later she ends up in the hospital, badly beaten.
That’s when Denzel Washington visits the Russians at the back of the lounge, offering them everything he has to buy Teri’s freedom. When they refuse, he puts the money back into his pocket and prepares to leave. As he starts to leave the room, he opens and closes the office door a few times, making his famous “no turning back” decision. When he turns around and faces the men, he’s calm and relaxed, knowing exactly what he has to do. He even looks at his watch and judges the amount of time it will take to kill them all. Though he’s not as fast as in his younger days, McCall still manages to take out everyone in the office without breaking a sweat. As he tells the head mobster afterwards, “You should have taken the money.”
Of course, this is only the beginning. The head honcho over in Russian sends his top fixer (Teddy as played by Marton Csokas) to solve the problem. Even with him and a hand-picked crew of killers, they’re no match for Denzel Washington, especially with the final sequence in a Home Depot.
As Denzel Washington’s ex-CIA handler tells her husband. “McCall wasn’t coming to me for information. He was coming to get permission to kill them.” That is when we learn that McCall’s late wife died of cancer, and then he staged his own death so could leave the CIA without any problems. He also has a very special relationship with his handler (Susan Plummer) that reminded of the kind a mother and son usually have.
The Equalizer did so well at the Box Office that the movie studio that made it, green-lighted the sequel. That usually takes a year or longer, but not this time. We should hopefully have another Equalizer film out in 2016.
The regular DVD doesn’t have much in the way of extras on it. It certainly has more than John Wick, but what little there is can be watched in ten minutes. I’ve read that the Blu-ray has more in the way of special features to watch, so I guess I’m going to have to get that one, too.
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I like this movie. It’s fantastic and full of action. Robert, the main character, is already a retired agent but he cannot stand on the wickedness brought around on his place by the russian mafia. Many people were affected. Even the local police was force to corruption or face death if they fight. When Robert realized that Alina and other whore was forced against their will to sell their body and been badly beaten, he decided to end this wickedness. It is really a good story for a heroic act. Although it is not reveal exactly what happened in the past aside that he was an agent and her wife died, I highly recommend this movie. I give 5 star on this. Thanks.