The Equalizer

Dir: Antoine Fuqua

2014

***

An Antoine Fuqua directed movie based on an old (and much loved) Edward Woodward TV series? A decade ago I would have told you to hit the road Jack and don't come back but after watching 2014’s adaption of The Equalizer I have to say good job. I'm not an Antoine Fuqua fan but to his credit he does improve with each film, this probably being his best to date. Denzel Washington is nothing like Edward Woodward which I think made him a good casting decision as he was perfect in the part as well as bringing something new to the character. Apparently Nicolas Winding Refn was first offered the director post but left after just one month. It would have been interesting to see what he would have done with it but I’m glad Fuqua and Washington came in after Paul Haggis and Russell Crowe both left the film in 2011. The film focuses on Robert McCall (Denzel Washington), a retired Marine and Defense Intelligence Agency operative who, after promising his recently deceased wife that he would leave his former activities behind, lives quietly in Boston and works at a Home Mart hardware store. McCall befriends many of his co-workers and helps them in various ways, including a security guard trainee named Ralph who he helps pass his qualification exam. Unable to sleep, McCall spends some late nights reading in a 24/7 diner where he befriends Alina (Chloë Grace Moretz), a teenage prostitute for the Russian Mafia. One night, Alina is hospitalized following a brutal beating by her pimp, Slavi. Hearing of the beating, McCall visits Alina's hospital room and speaks with her friend, Mandy (Haley Bennett). McCall tracks down Slavi at his office and offers to buy Alina's freedom. Slavi refuses, dismissing McCall as old and impotent. McCall then kills Slavi and four of his men with skillful close combat efficiency by using the men's own weapons, various objects in the office, and his bare hands. Following the killings, Russian Mafia boss Vladimir Pushkin (Vladimir Kulich) sends his enforcer, Teddy Rensen (Marton Csokas), to find and eliminate the culprit. In the meantime, Ralph withdraws his security guard application, going to work for his mother at the family restaurant. When McCall learns the restaurant was set on fire by corrupt policemen as an act of extortion, he confronts and beats the officers, forces them to pay back all the money they have extorted, and threatens to publicize their crimes. Ralph then returns to Home Mart and passes his test, becoming a security guard at the store. In investigating the murders of Pushkin's henchmen, Rensen questions Alina's friend Mandy, who tells him that "a nice man - a black man" had come to visit Alina in the hospital. Mandy is then murdered by Rensen. There is an armed robbery at the Home Mart in which a coworker's ring is stolen. After the ring is mysteriously returned, McCall is seen polishing a sledgehammer and putting it back in the store. After finding video footage of McCall entering the building where the killings of Slavi and the other gangsters occurred, Rensen visits McCall at his apartment and later makes two attempts to capture him. However, McCall escapes after killing one of Rensen's men and knocking out another. McCall then visits old friend and fellow former DIA operative Susan Plummer (played by Melissa Leo, while her husband is played by Bill Pullman), who uses her resources to give him information on Pushkin and his operations. Plummer informs McCall that Teddy Rensen's true name is Nicolai Itchenko and that he is a former member of the Russian secret police and Spetsnaz. Plummer also gives McCall "permission" to break the promise to retire that he made to his late wife. Stepping up his actions against Pushkin, McCall subdues and forces Frank Masters (David Harbour) - a corrupt policeman working for Pushkin - to help destroy one of Pushkin's local money-laundering operations. From Masters, McCall obtains a memory stick loaded with information about Pushkin's illegal activities (including bribes of Congressmen and Senators), which he emails to the FBI. McCall then confronts Itchenko at a restaurant, revealing that he knows his history and pledging to bring down Pushkin's criminal enterprise. When McCall destroys a container ship Pushkin used to smuggle goods, Pushkin orders Itchenko to kill McCall. Itchenko and his men go to Home Mart and take Ralph and several of McCall's other co-workers hostage, threatening to kill them if McCall does not surrender. McCall kills Itchenko's henchmen one by one using booby traps constructed with items in the store, but is wounded in the process. After a struggle between McCall and one of Itchenko's men, Ralph comes back to pull the injured McCall out of the store, but is shot in the leg himself. After Ralph escapes, McCall confronts Itchenko and kills him with a nail gun. Later, McCall travels to Moscow and tricks Pushkin into electrocuting himself. On his return to the US, he is approached by Alina, who has recovered from her injuries and found a legitimate job. She thanks him for giving her a second chance. McCall is inspired by this to continue using his skills to help people in need and posts an online advertisement, now identifying himself as "The Equalizer". He soon receives another plea and agrees to answer it. It feels like the beginning of something good. I thought they got the origins of The Equalizer right too, it didn’t need to be an origins story in truth, but what was and wasn’t explored about the character’s background told us enough about him without loosing that much needed mystery. It was appropriately violent when it needed to be, very stylish and quite slick in its direction. The bad guys were really horrible too, Marton Csokas almost stealing the show. He must be in the running for 'Bad Guy of the year 2014' surely? My only problem with The Equalizer was the showdown scene. Filmed in a Home & Garden centre, it got a tad tiresome, especially as all the weapons and fighting scenarios revolved around Drills, spades and sacks of concrete. It went on a bit too, with the wrong characters making pointless appearances and the bad guy looking a little less bad then he did before. Not a great ending but overall a pretty good film that could lead to exciting possibilities.