Washington is great even if the film itself sometimes falters

Rating: 6/10 (20 December 2014)

The Equalizer teams Antoine Fuqua and Denzel Washington again for the first time since Training Day. While this outing is far less memorable than their first, both rise to the occasion to deliver an enjoyable action film. While the film translates the television source material with brutal and violent force, it does spend a lot of time developing Washington's Robert McCall to be a meticulous and ruthless killer with a heart and a high standard of morals. This could have been great but for the first forty minutes of the film, we're seeing a routine and as routines go, it is simple to conclude that it gets boring after the first 15 minutes. McCall meets a young prostitute named Alina, played by Chloe Grace Moretz and discovers she is beaten to a pulp and then decides to kill her employers setting off a wicked chain of gangland violence, all falling on McCall to "equalize" the situation. As McCall is tracked by a Russian mob boss, you begin to start feeling the story drag out. This is the point where the film should really take off but it actually slows down. It tries to be suspenseful but it actually creates for a pacing mess. It jumps from following McCall to following a city of crooked cops and brutal gangsters. This would have made for an interesting dynamic for the film but the villains are so wooden and clichè that you can't really sink into the scenes as easily as you could if Washington was on the screen. Despite this, the scenes of action really make up for the pacing problems. The action scenes are quick, brutal and never glorifies the violence. It shows it as a reality and as Fuqua's previous works show, he has a clear understanding of violence and he makes sure he shows it as a frightening event. My only problem with these scenes are not the scenes themselves, its everything leading up to it. The scenes of McCall "analyzing" the situation he's in are cheesy and done in slow motion, it just took me right out of it. Overall, The Equalizer is a decent film that has its issues but it remains enjoyable due to Fuqua's competent direction and Washington's performance.