It was well over a decade ago that Antoine Fuqua’s gritty, intense and shocking police-action film Training Day propelled Denzel Washington to an Acadamy Award and straight into the A-list.
Their screen-fortunes have been mixed in the time that’s elapsed since, but with The Equalizer, we’re treated to a long over-due reunion between director and acting talent.
Based on the ‘80s TV show of the same name, The Equalizer follows Washington’s Robert McCall, a former black ops agent who has left behind his life of killing in the name of something altogether more peaceful – namely working in an American version of B&Q.
McCall is a man of routine, conducting every aspect of his life with military precision. His peaceful existence is shattered, however, when a young street girl named Teri (Chloe Grace Moretz) that he’s befriended falls foul of some overly abusive men, and McCall finds that, as much as he might want to be a different man, he can’t just sit back and watch somebody in trouble without taking action. As a result, he lands on the wrong side of the Russian mafia, and finds himself thrust back into a world he thought he was done with for good.
The plot of The Equalizer offers nothing new, and the best moments occur in the early going, as McCall and Teri bond over literary classics in a night café. Their easy camaraderie is believable, and the two actors have strong chemistry.
It’s a shame, then, that after the opening thirty minutes or so, Moretz disappears from the film entirely, a more-or-less forgotten presence. This leaves Washington as a lone wolf, and, as charismatic and eminently watchable as he is, there’s a definite hole in the film once Moretz falls off the face of the celluloid.
As for Fuqua, he’s obviously been paying attention to the current trends in action films. The Equalizer is nowhere near as gritty or as interesting as Training Day, and here he prefers to opt for more Taken-style fare.
The film is shot through with energy and verve, with a chunky, guitar-laden soundtrack, but in his attempts to paint McCall as the hero, he perhaps over-eggs the pudding. McCall isn’t just competent – he’s undefeatable.
The film runs to cheesy extremes all too often: witness as McCall walks away from an explosion without looking at it; watch, as he strolls out, with water raining down epic droplets in slow motion all around him. It’s all good natured and fun, but it becomes difficult to take seriously.
Similarly, the script veers too often away from subtly. While Moretz and Washington’s discussion of books is great to watch, thanks to the pair’s strong dynamic, the analogies painted aren’t terribly hard to decipher. In fact, they’re almost offensively on-the-nose.
“What’s that one about?” she asks him. “It’s about a knight in shining armour. Except he lives in a world where knights don’t exist anymore.” Gee, I wonder who he could be talking about?
Still, Washington is always watchable, and the film is sandwiched by two great action sequences – the first which implies far more interesting things to come, even if they never arrive – and the second which ramps up the ridiculousness of action films to the extreme. At times it’s almost – almost – like watching a spoof. But credit where it’s due – a set-piece in McCall’s B&Q equivalent is hugely entertaining, and makes for some spectacularly inventive kills.
In fact, it’s almost tempting to view The Equalizer as a horror film. McCall is every bit as invincible as Michael Myers et al, and he dispatches his adversaries in just as many unsavoury ways. Sure, he’s only killing evil, morally corrupt Russian gangsters rather than innocent teenagers, but the beats play out almost identically. If any of our horror icons were good guys, they might look something not altogether unlike Robert McCall.
Given the talent involved, if you come into The Equalizer looking for Training Day 2, you are going to leave disappointed. But if you’re a fan of modern-day action films, The Equalizer is a fun entry into the genre and – with a sequel all but guaranteed at this point – Liam Neeson’s Bryan Mills better watch his back if he doesn’t want his throne toppled.
Released on DVD and Blu-ray on Monday 26 January 2015.