Saturday, September 27, 2014

The Equalizer

I've been looking forward to seeing this for weeks. I'm a huge Denzel Washington fan and will watch almost anything that he's in. Once again, I was not disappointed.

The Equalizer is about a man named Robert McCall (Denzel Washington). I think he use to be some sort of special agent but I'm not sure. The movie never really goes into specifics about it. He's now trying to lead a quiet life working at a Home Depot knockoff during the day and hanging out at a local diner at night drinking tea and reading books. He befriends a young prostitute named Teri (Chloe Grace Moretz) who is being controlled by men who work for the Russian mob. One night Teri is badly beaten. Robert decides to help her and use his skill set to take down these men.

Denzel is not only one of the greatest action stars out there, but one of the greatest actors period. While this may not be my favorite performance of his, he's still amazing and a total bad ass. Why do all of these villains keep fucking with him? They should know by now that it's not going to end well for them. I also liked all of the mystery behind his character. I kept wondering, who the hell is this guy? How did he learn to do all of these things?

As far as the main villain, Teddy, is concerned I thought Marton Csokas did a decent enough job playing him. It's just that the character was so generic and after awhile he doesn't seem all that threatening.

The Equalizer is directed by Antoine Fuqua, who had previously directed Denzel in Training Day. I felt his style and look for the film worked well. There were several slo motion scenes that normally feel cheesy to me but here they actually worked. The action scenes were a blast to watch even if they did seem absurd after awhile. I'm convinced that Denzel's character wasn't human. It really is one of those movies where you have to throw logic out the window.

Even though I was never really bored, I felt the movie did drag a little at first. The run time was well over two hours and it didn't need to be. They could have easily cut a good twenty to thirty minutes.

Despite a couple of flaws, I still enjoyed watching this. It's a really fun action movie. I hope it does well at the box office.

My Rating: 8/10

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