Did we really need The Equalizer 3? I found the last two to be quite forgettable, despite the presence of the great Denzel Washington.
I’m always down for anything Mr. Washington stars in, so with the lowest of expectations, I entered the cinema to screen the finale in this trilogy.
And I was immediately impressed.
The Plot
The opening scene in Sicily has an elderly man enter a mansion where some crazy violence has gone down. There is blood and bodies everywhere. One’s face has become acquainted with a butcher’s knife…
I don’t remember the other Equalizer films being this gory!
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As it were, our hero, retired DIA Officer, Robert McCall (Denzel Washington) has wiped the floor with all the thugs residing in this mansion. Before copping a bullet in the back and blacking out from the injury.
A good Samaritan doctor nurses McCall back to health without the need to alert local authorities. On his road to recovery, the ex-US Marine falls in love with the town and its people. Therefore, when some local gangsters start stirring up trouble, ol’ Robert decides to even the odds.
Or equalize. It’s kind of what he does.
The Issues
With a cracker beginning, The Equalizer 3 had my attention. But it didn’t hold it for long.
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Unfortunately, the film falls back into the same issues I had with the other movies in the series. Sure, McCall is this stone-cold killer, but when he’s just trying to live a normal life, things feel awkward.
They really go hard, trying to push how ‘good’ the people are around him, in turn making them feel like caricatures rather than real flesh and blood characters.
And these scenes go on for waaaaay too long. Eventually, we are introduced to some bad guys, but they are so generic. Sicilian gangsters in either fancy suits driving swanky European supercars or with shaved heads and tattoos, riding a motorbike. There isn’t much here I haven’t seen before, or anything that actually makes them interesting.
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When McCall has had enough and starts taking out each of these baddies one by one, working up the criminal ladder, it’s awesome. This is an action flick after all. The blank look that overcomes Denzel’s face as he coolly tells a punk that he’s not threatening him, he’s “Just preparing you” is ‘mwah’ — chef’s kiss.
The Badassery
He is an unstoppable force once he starts killing, quickly dispensing of anyone who offends him or the people of his new town.
As cool as this is, it presents two problems.
One, the mix between his wholesome life and being a killer just feels a bit off the rails. As I said, it takes too long to get to the action, and the scenes in between feel so superficial.
And two, McCall is too much of a badass.
Can one be too badass, I hear you ask?
Well, for us to feel anything for our hero, there must be a chance that he would lose. Even a slight chance.
Robert McCall, not even for a second, feels like he would succumb to any threats. As cool it is to see him plow through Sicily’s underground, it can get a bit boring when there are no stakes.
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The Cast
Luckily, Denzel Washington brings that trademark swagger to the role. Even with a drab scrip to work with, Washington is still a delight to watch on screen.
And he is reunited with his co-star of 2004’s Man On Fire (a much better movie), Dakota Fanning. All grown up now, Fanning plays the thankless role of a CIA agent, investigating some of the events that McCall has been involved with in Sicily.
Her character and the whole of the CIA are a bit shoehorned in, forcing a bigger terrorist plot that doesn’t really go anywhere.
Still cute to see them on screen together again.
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Conclusion
Equalizer 3 is full of generic good and bad guys, a generic plot and generic settings. This makes for a pretty average action movie that would’ve been better suited for a ‘straight-to-streaming’ release rather than in cinemas.
I guess Denzel still has that draw though, that’s why I was there.
Quest Daily Scores The Equalizer 3:
5/10
The Equalizer 3 is in cinemas now.
