One of the best vigilante movies I've seen

Rating: 9/10 (24 December 2014)

How could anyone not like a vigilante movie? It's surprising to me Hollywood doesn't make more of them considering they always seem to be well liked and successful. Plus the formula is simple enough to create. Then you simply find the right actor and boom! Box office success. The first vigilante movie that comes to mind for most people I'd imagine would be 'Die Hard'. Then for the younger generation I'd imagine it to be 'Taken' (and possibly a few of the older generation because it was pretty good. And now I'm telling you once enough people have seen 'The Equalizer' it'll be right up there amongst the other big guns because it is very very good.
The most important ingredient of all to the vigilante genre has to be the star. Bruce Willis was perfect in his role, Liam Neeson was even better in his role and now here we have Denzel Washington, one of the coolest actors in Hollywood. For an old man (he's 60) he absolutely nailed it. First of all you'd never guess he was 60, I believe he worked out very hard for the role. Secondly it's his demeanor throughout that defines the character. He's so in control, so calm and collected that never once do we feel he could be in the slightest bit of danger from these ragtag Russian gangsters.
And unfortunately therein lies probably the only downfall in 'The Equalizer'. Perhaps he's simply too in the control the entire time. It makes for a lot of fun no doubt about it, but somewhere in those 2 hours and 10 minutes you have to have your hero in a precarious position where it seems all is lost only for him to miraculously escape. There's a scene where you could argue that was the case but I don't think it was enough. That's the only criticism though I could find in this very fine film.