In keeping with The Equalizer’s grim efficiency I’ll keep it short and sweet. The sort of review you could look at your watch beforehand, say “16 seconds,” and know you’ve gotten to the meat of the matter: It’s good. It’s brutal.
Though not particularly sophisticated, The Equalizer is heady—and downright delicious—in its ability to plumb the depths of knowing exactly what it is. Has Denzel played this riff 13 times before? Duh. Are we watching yet another iteration of the lone, just-ish man a la Yojimbo, Death Wish, or Neesons given your particular era? Uh…that’s kind of the best part. Should you care about this film? Well, no one’s asking you to start a charity for the damn thing. All The Equalizer asks of you is to cozy up with your favorite corkscrew and let a movie so good at being a movie just be a movie.
The most commendable part of the film is the element most readily apparent, Denzel Washington. Denzel saunters through this picture like a Bengal Tiger stalking around his supplicants. His acting, though nothing outside of his ken, vibrates with tuning fork like perfection and consistency. Playing a character who’s not so much a Robert as a Mr. McCall, he’s a deadly man conspicuously hiding in the cage/façade of ‘regular’ life. Part guidance counselor, part lonely widower, part unknowable man, it’s the best version of Denzel Denzel has played in a while.
Never once does this film set itself up to be something it’s not, or should even aspire to be. Equalizer, fittingly enough, understands the sort of balance a film like November Man clumsily grabs it. We’re given our motivation, our villain, our ultra-violence, and little else. All in tidy fashion, all just the right amount.
All in exact proportion, the film has an uncanny sense of what doesn’t matter. The Equalizer asks you to invest in Mr. McCall’s mission via a character—Teri as played by the ascending Chloe G. Moretz—who we see for maybe four minutes. Our villain, Martin Csokas, we know better, and not by much. But the scenes where these characters lay their cards out for one another, the engine hums with the same certainty as it does during outrageous ass kickery. Sewn together with deft touches of dialogue and decent book references turned framing device, The Equalizer casts a shadow without the gaudy action pieces.
But let’s not overlook gaudy action pieces. I’d never tell tales out of school, but I feel obligated to articulate my reaction and my lingering impressions. My reaction, once the fisticuffs hit a rolling boil, was a gleeful giggling, “Whhhaaaatttttt?!?!?” I’m not sure how that’s supposed to look as decided by MLA standards, but it’s the only way a man knows how to say a thing. “Whhhhaaaatttt?!?!”
The fight sequences are tight, savage, well-choreographed, and deeply satisfying. My favorite wrinkle? Mr. McCall rarely uses guns because, “guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” ‘Real’ men kill with their bare hands. You want these one dimensional baddies to be run through, and Denzel lives up to the task with tangible zeal. After I left the theater, lingering in a mist of blood and slo-mo rain, it occurred to me what the writer had accomplished. He thought to himself, “You know, if you had to fuck up a whole grip of dudes—and make it, like, awesome—THIS would be the place.” And he takes us there. He takes us deep down into that black and blue Promised Land.
The Equalizer is crazy good fun. I could sit here and bemoan what we all already know about this picture, but the movie deserves better. Because there is really only one thing we definitively know: The Equalizer is a moving picture show. And it’s so good at just that, a celebration is in order.
—Monte Monreal
Though not particularly sophisticated, The Equalizer is heady—and downright delicious—in its ability to plumb the depths of knowing exactly what it is. Has Denzel played this riff 13 times before? Duh. Are we watching yet another iteration of the lone, just-ish man a la Yojimbo, Death Wish, or Neesons given your particular era? Uh…that’s kind of the best part. Should you care about this film? Well, no one’s asking you to start a charity for the damn thing. All The Equalizer asks of you is to cozy up with your favorite corkscrew and let a movie so good at being a movie just be a movie.
The most commendable part of the film is the element most readily apparent, Denzel Washington. Denzel saunters through this picture like a Bengal Tiger stalking around his supplicants. His acting, though nothing outside of his ken, vibrates with tuning fork like perfection and consistency. Playing a character who’s not so much a Robert as a Mr. McCall, he’s a deadly man conspicuously hiding in the cage/façade of ‘regular’ life. Part guidance counselor, part lonely widower, part unknowable man, it’s the best version of Denzel Denzel has played in a while.
Never once does this film set itself up to be something it’s not, or should even aspire to be. Equalizer, fittingly enough, understands the sort of balance a film like November Man clumsily grabs it. We’re given our motivation, our villain, our ultra-violence, and little else. All in tidy fashion, all just the right amount.
All in exact proportion, the film has an uncanny sense of what doesn’t matter. The Equalizer asks you to invest in Mr. McCall’s mission via a character—Teri as played by the ascending Chloe G. Moretz—who we see for maybe four minutes. Our villain, Martin Csokas, we know better, and not by much. But the scenes where these characters lay their cards out for one another, the engine hums with the same certainty as it does during outrageous ass kickery. Sewn together with deft touches of dialogue and decent book references turned framing device, The Equalizer casts a shadow without the gaudy action pieces.
But let’s not overlook gaudy action pieces. I’d never tell tales out of school, but I feel obligated to articulate my reaction and my lingering impressions. My reaction, once the fisticuffs hit a rolling boil, was a gleeful giggling, “Whhhaaaatttttt?!?!?” I’m not sure how that’s supposed to look as decided by MLA standards, but it’s the only way a man knows how to say a thing. “Whhhhaaaatttt?!?!”
The fight sequences are tight, savage, well-choreographed, and deeply satisfying. My favorite wrinkle? Mr. McCall rarely uses guns because, “guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” ‘Real’ men kill with their bare hands. You want these one dimensional baddies to be run through, and Denzel lives up to the task with tangible zeal. After I left the theater, lingering in a mist of blood and slo-mo rain, it occurred to me what the writer had accomplished. He thought to himself, “You know, if you had to fuck up a whole grip of dudes—and make it, like, awesome—THIS would be the place.” And he takes us there. He takes us deep down into that black and blue Promised Land.
The Equalizer is crazy good fun. I could sit here and bemoan what we all already know about this picture, but the movie deserves better. Because there is really only one thing we definitively know: The Equalizer is a moving picture show. And it’s so good at just that, a celebration is in order.
—Monte Monreal
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