The Equalizer – Action Movie Review

Director: Antoine Fuqua

Production Company: Columbia Pictures, LSTAR Captial, Village Roadshow, Escape Artists, Mace Neufield Productions

Country: USA

Year: 2014

There’s something of an air of sadness that unfortunately hangs over The Equalizer. Ten years on, it still looks good. It works. But it came out in the same year as John Wick. And two action revenge movies with A-listers going on one-man vigilante killing sprees across a city against a large organisation of rich soviets, in the same year? No, it was always going to be a question of which one was remembered more. And whilst John Wick definitely took that mantle, Equalizer also has a hell of a lot going for it.

Based on the 80s TV series of the same name, putting Denzel Washington in the lead role of Bob McCall, the man with a mysteriously violent past hiding under a normal job, coming out of retirement to do good after the passing of his wife (despite how much it falls in line with John Wick‘s storyline) is something of an inspired choice. He brings a weight and a gravitas to his monologues, a ruthless efficiency to his action sequences, and yet still has a light-hearted tenderness required for those calmer moments. It is, after all, this tender side of him which allows the entire plot to spark off. Nothing is done against him per say, but it is his need to right wrongs around him which enables him to go through with coming back to a world of blood and violence.

The direction is superb, with Fuqua and cinematographer Mauro Fiore working in perfect sync to give us some wonderful action sequences, perfectly balancing the need for beautiful imagery with a gritty realism when the time comes. The action is a lot more gruesome than others of the time, especially for big-budget Hollywood, and whilst it might not come to the levels of a South Korean action flick, or something which really changed up the standard like The Raid a few years earlier, it’s nice to see them acknowledging that when you shove a corkscrew into someone’s mouth, there’s a lot more blood than you’d think that comes out of the wound.

Nothing is completely perfect, unfortunately. There is a tendency to go for a more ‘modern’ style of editing in parts, the quick fades and flashes of a trip to Moscow near the end really doesn’t fit well with the slow-motion stuff we’ve seen only moments before. Also, as a result of the specific plotline, it feels very impersonal for McCall. He’s more of a superhero, in it for the need to do right, than for some personal vendetta, and that does tend to make him a cypher for morals rather than a person.

It’s a shame, because aside from some slight moments where they seem to have gone for ‘coolness’ and ‘modernity’ over correctness of the film, The Equalizer is a very effective, very well made action thriller. That it has ended up with two sequels is through its craft and not through sheer box office numbers. But had it come out at any other time other than 2014, who knows? It might have been Denzel Washington we go to as the standard action hero of the past decade, and not Keanu Reeves. Or, at least, not quite as much.

Rating: 7.5/10

Review by Kieran Judge

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