In Denzel Washington’s words, “Loosely based on the TV
series [starring Edward Woodward, which ran from 1985 – ‘89],” The Equalizer sees retired military man
Robert McCall coming to the aid of those in trouble. Day-to-day, McCall is
calm, restrained, working at a DIY store and spending his evenings reading
classic literature. When a prostitute is beaten up and hospitalised, McCall
exacts bloody revenge on her pimp and his goons, unaware that he has started a
war with the Russian mafia.
There’s nothing remotely new about The Equalizer, directed by Antoine Fuqua (Training Day, Olympus Has
Fallen), but it is two hours of stylishly shot violence that asks its
audience not to think too much about its hero’s morals.
Robert McCall is an easy role for
Washington to play. If you’ve seen Man on
Fire or The Book of Eli, you’ll
know Washington does an impressive job when he needs to be moody and intense. Washington
does the same again here, flicking in a split second between every day,
charismatic blue-collar worker to a cold, hard staring killing machine. Chloë
Grace Moretz is the prostitute who wants to turn her life around, Moretz
impressively managing to take a clichéd role and put some personality up there
on the screen. Richard Wenk has written a number of thoughtful, sincere conversations
between Washington and Moretz, where we are given hints about their pasts, both
of them trying to create new identities for themselves. Marton Csokas is the
film’s villain, the Russian mafia’s “fixer”, Teddy. Virtually every scene
featuring Csokas is uncomfortably tense; even when he’s calm, you’re waiting for
him to do something savagely violent. While Wenk’s script never takes the time
to explain how Teddy became this sadistic sociopath, Csokas easily stands out
amongst the hundreds of carbon copy action film bad guys.
Antoine Fuqua is a gifted director
when it comes to filming action, with scenes shot at a smooth, constant pace
instead of feverish editing where we cut to several angles over the space of a few
seconds. For the most part, Fuqua cuts away from the violence, instead preferring
sticky sound effects that feel just as wince-inducing. The only exception is a
scene early on when Washington kills a group of mobsters using a paper weight,
their own guns, and a corkscrew. It’s as if Fuqua is trying to push the 15
certificate rating as far as it will go. It’s an impressively choreographed scene,
the first time you see Washington in action and is a statement of intent from
both director and star: this is not a dumbed down 12A action film.
For me, it wasn’t the violence that
was hard to stomach, but the occasional slow motion shots where we get to see
what’s going on inside McCall’s head. The camera zooms in on his eyeball,
before showing us the room he’s in (now in soft focus and garishly lit) and the
people he needs to kill in slow motion. These shots felt flamboyant and unnecessary,
a poor man’s version of the stop motion shots in Steven Moffat’s Sherlock when we’re shown how Holmes’
mind works.
The
Equalizer
is only going to appeal to Chuck Norris and Jason Statham fans, audiences who
want to see henchmen beaten up and killed in imaginative ways. Fuqua doesn’t
try and reinvent the revenge thriller sub-genre, but you have to give him praise
for giving us a film that harks back to the ridiculously violent actioners of
the eighties, rather than the toned down, neutered thrillers that arrive at
cinemas every summer (White House Down,
A Good Day To Die Hard, et al).
3 out of 5
Matt
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