Hollywood legend Denzel Washington and director Antoine Fuqua are back together again for the third instalment of the vigilante action franchise, The Equalizer. For those not in the know, the series of films centres around a character called Robert McCall, a highly skilled – now retired – government assassin who finds himself constantly in situations where he feels compelled to fight (read: brutally kill) for the everyman. In The Equalizer 3, it doesn’t get more ‘everyman’ than the quaint little town in southern Italy where we find McCall, now calling himself Roberto, recovering from injuries sustained after taking down the boss of a drug export operation fronting as a wine business. The people of the small town welcome him with open arms, helping him find not only physical healing but also the sense of inner peace and calm that he needs.
Of course, as extremely violent action franchises go, the peace doesn’t last very long. Enter the Sicilian Mafia, who bully and terrorize small business owners, police officers and ordinary residents, with a view to expanding their network and increasing their profits. This time, though, the small-towners are in luck because they have Roberto on their side. That, in a nutshell, is what The Equalizer 3 is all about.
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Any time you watch Denzel do his thing in front of camera, you’re basically attending an acting masterclass. On the one hand, Roberto is a trained killer with ice in his veins – cold, efficient, utterly ruthless. When asked by Gaia Scodellaro’s character, Aminah, why he always lays out serviettes on the table in front of him before he drinks his tea, his answer is simple but telling: “I like things neat”. On the other hand, McCall is a man trying to find his soul again, attempting to navigate the chaotic and complicated world of human relationships: how far is too far when it comes to connecting with other people considering the job I do and the things I know I’ve done? Well, there’s nobody better to carry this kind of range than Washington. This is particularly important because, at times, the story feels a little thin and is occasionally peppered with some well-worn action film cliches and littered with cardboard cutout villains.
Still, anchored by Denzel Washington’s rock-solid performance, supported by Dakota Fanning and the other members of the cast, most of them Italian, The Equalizer 3 manages to thrill and entertain quite convincingly. It’s a violent movie, perhaps a notch above the previous two films. Very little is left to the imagination in that area to the point where some scenes and shots border on grotesque, using both aspects of the dictionary definition of the word – ‘ugly’ and ‘comical’.
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In the end, The Equalizer 3 fits well into the world of Robert McCall, as told by Washington and Fuqua. If indeed this is the last Equalizer film, which is likely as it’s hard to picture the almost 70-year-old Denzel playing the Tom Cruise game and pushing on with this character for much longer, it’s a decent one to end with. After all, it’s the one in which we see McCall at his most human and vulnerable. While it has its fair share of cheese and eww moments, it also has some soul, and it doesn’t hurt that everything plays out in one of the most scenic and storied places on Earth.
