No it's not a sequel to Man on Fire - though Denzel Washington IS dope

Rating: 6/10 (6 October 2014)

Directed by Antoine Fuqua (Training Day, Shooter), The Equalizer is a story of vigilante justice and badassery done right. Anywho, Washington plays the seemingly ordinary Robert McCall who works at something like a Home Depot and is generally liked. He helps his coworker get in shape for some physical, he builds rapport with his customers, and he makes small talk with a 17 year old call-girl named Teri played by Chloë Grace Moretz. Wait what? Miss Moretz plays a lady of the evening? Surely you're pulling my leg! No dear reader, she's being pushed around by those sneaky Russian mobsters that occupy the noble city of Boston, so she has no choice!
Carrying onTeri (also known as Alina) is one of the regulars at a local diner, similar to something out of Edward Hoppers Nighthawks, that Robert also frequents in his insomnia. He's always reading books such as The Old Man and The Sea and Don Quixote, so they ultimately form an informal bond as she feels a peculiar trust and feeling of safety in his presence. Long story short, Robert finds out that the Russians messed Alina up pretty bad, so he takes it upon himself to try and buy her freedom from the gangsters. This is when the movie turns into The Bourne films as Denzel Washington suddenly channels his inner assassin and kills the 5 gangsters in the most methodical and efficient way possible (because they turned down his petty cash).
Having awoken the inner killer that he apparently was trying to hide, Robert McCall then proceeds to begin a series of vigilante acts to maintain his peaceful, yet seemingly lonely lifestyle. Who is he to have all this advanced killing ability? Well you'll just have to watch the movie! Meanwhile, Marton Csokas is sent in as the archetypal Russian hit-man (despite the actor being from New Zealand) to find out who killed the other Russians. Turns out the gangsters McCall thought were just pimps were actually the local figureheads for a massive criminal syndicate. Go figure.
That's about all I can say for this film. It's extremely well- polished and has decent performances all around. Despite being a bit part, I do want to highlight Chloë Grace Moretz as being an actress I'm extremely excited to watch in the future, though it was a bit unsettling to see the young actress playing a prostitute. Initially I thought she was annoying as Hit-Girl in Kick-Ass (2010) but I think that was just her character. I think she's an extremely talented actress and personally cannot wait to see what she delivers in the future.
Additionally, all the technical stuff in this film like set-design, cinematography, action sequences – this movie is basically the ideal standard for how all of those should work in a modern action flick. Anything less is just sloppy film-making in my opinion if this is the type of movie you want to make. Antoine Fuqua delivers a solid film like he did with Training Day (2001) and Shooter (2007) and that's all she wrote.
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