The Equalizer

martin csokas -kevin spacey's tattooed twin

In the light of the recent shooting down of the Malaysian Airlines flight over the Ukraine, the Russian villains depicted in the film version of the television series, THE EQUALIZER, take on a much more vile and sinister mantle.

Denzel Washington takes over from Edward Woodward in the role of Robert McCall in Antoine Fuqua’s big budget bang for your buck avenging angel vigilante movie makeover.

Recently widowed, McCall is now a hard working hardware store employee, having once been one of the CIA’s killer elite. Renouncing his old trade in a remorseful act of contrition to his dearly departed, he leads a Spartan existence racked by insomnia, a sleeplessness that causes him to frequent an all-night diner where he sits and sweeps through the bucket list of books left by his spouse.

It is at this venue he comes across hooker, Teri, played by Chloe Grace Moretz, pimped by a local Russian crime czar, who shows his disappointment at her aspirations of a different life by a beating that puts her in hospital.

When McCall tries to legitimately buy her out of her contract he is met with derision and a furious fracas that proves fatal for the flesh peddlers ensues.

This action brings the Russian oligarchy head honcho’s head henchman, Teddy, to town, and McCall is forced into a full scale war of attrition.

Basically a wish fulfillment flick of stepping up to the bully and winning, the film works best in its quieter moments, the action marred by cliché slo mo sequences and a mawkish relishing of gratuitous violence.

Racial profiling notwithstanding, THE EQUALIZER targets the despicable actions of corrupt police, their disregard for the badge of honour they so disgracefully dishonour, and the way that their duplicity with criminal empires undermines individual freedoms in a democracy. It’s the enemy within that’s just as or even more insidious than the enemy per se.

Denzel Washington is his ever reliable gravitas self, giving layer and texture to what could have been a mere cartoon character, and Marton Csokas, channeling Kevin Spacey, gives him the nastiest of nemesis in the far from cuddly Teddy.

A duet cameo from Melissa Leo and Bill Pullman as McCall’s surrogate spook family is a highlight.

Richard Wenk’s screenplay has too many shades of his previous script for The Expendables 2 and coupled with Fuqua’s enthusiasm for the extended slo mo, THE EQUALIZER over extends and overstays its running time by a long-shot.

A case of more guts less allegory. Pity.