The Equalizer

My Grade:  B

I love Training Day. It’s one of my favorites and I can watch it over and over. With that being said, I was pumped to see that Denzel Washington was reteaming with his Training Day director (Antoine Fuqua) for the new action-thriller, The Equalizer. And, I must say, I got exactly what I expected in the theater which is good and bad.

There’s just something about Denzel Washington dispensing his own brand of justice which makes me giddy. And The Equalizer allows him to do just that by the wheelbarrow-full. I use that image instead of “boatload” or something else because his character, Bob, works in a Lowes that is renamed “Home Mart.” Bob is a good dude with a past that he clearly wants to put himself far away from.  He can’t, though, once he befriends a young hooker (a strange but solid turn from Chloe Grace Moretz) who gets mistreated (the understatement of the century) by her Russian pimp. Bob’s idea is “if you can do something, you should.” Well, he can. And he does… in a ridiculously violent and not entirely plausible fashion.

While it is an absolute blast watching Denzel dish out unique kills in well shot and edited fight scenes, I wish he struggled a little bit more. The odds are stacked so highly against him that it borders on silly that he doesn’t get hurt more than he does. It’s almost too easy, yet it still kept me on the edge of my seat. I think that’s because Fuqua doesn’t go for the standard guns-blazing shootout style fight scenes. He opts for a slower, one-kill-at-a-time, tension rich style of action which is not great for my nail biting because he succeeds in amping up the tension.

You would think that a movie like this would make the runtime fly by. Unfortunately, it doesn’t. The final hour or so goes by in a flash, but the beginning is strangely paced. There are a lot of lulls and exposition rich moments that are a bit too drawn out. If the flick were fifteen or twenty minutes shorter, I think it would have been a tighter, more evenly paced thriller.

The biggest surprise in The Equalizer is how effective the main villain is. He is terrifying! After Bob wipes out the main hub of the Russian mafia in Boston, the big boss from Moscow sends Teddy. Teddy is the guy that fixes problems. He’s a cunning, highly skilled sociopath with a penchant for extreme violence. Marton Csokas (Teddy) is no stranger to the big screen but isn’t widely known. I’d be willing to bet that after this terrifying turn opposite Denzel, he will be a good bit more attention. He ranks up there with some of the best villains I have seen at the movies recently and the first scene in which he meets Denzel’s character is the best written scene in the movie.

Overall, The Equalizer is stylish and a thrill to watch. The action is unique but the characters aren’t anything to write home about and the runtime should be a bit shorter to fix some slight pacing issues. Boasting strong performances from its leads, though, The Equalizer is a fun trip to the movies and delivers exactly what it is supposed to deliver. And it leaves room to become a franchise which is something Denzel deserves because, let’s face it, if Liam Neeson has one, Denzel should.