Equalizer, The (2014) [Blu-ray]
Action | Crime | Thriller
Tagline: What do you see when you look at me?
McCall (Denzel Washington) has put his mysterious past behind him and is dedicated to living a new, quiet life. But when he meets Teri (Chloe Grace Moretz), a young girl under the control of ultra-violent Russian gangsters, he can't stand idly by. Armed
with hidden skills that allow him to serve vengeance against anyone who would brutalize the helpless, McCall comes out of his self-imposed retirement and finds his desire for justice reawakened. If someone has a problem, if the odds are stacked against
them, if they have nowhere else to turn, McCall will help. He is The Equalizer.
Storyline: In The Equalizer, Denzel Washington plays McCall, a man who believes he has put his mysterious past behind him and dedicated himself to beginning a new, quiet life. But when McCall meets Teri (Chloë Grace Moretz), a
young girl under the control of ultra-violent Russian gangsters, he can't stand idly by - he has to help her. Armed with hidden skills that allow him to serve vengeance against anyone who would brutalize the helpless, McCall comes out of his self-imposed
retirement and finds his desire for justice reawakened. If someone has a problem, if the odds are stacked against them, if they have nowhere else to turn, McCall will help. He is The Equalizer. Written by Sony Pictures
Entertainment
Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Martin Liebman, December 20, 2014 -- The Equalizer appears to be the first new release movie to debut on Blu-ray that has been directly linked to press centered on the Sony hacking scandal.
According to news reports, an unnamed producer -- an omission which seems to be the exception to the air-it-all hacker strategy -- claimed that, while Washington is "the best actor of his generation," his skin color might damage the movie in overseas box
offices, stating "I believe that the international motion picture audience is racist – in general pictures with an African American lead don't play well overseas" (here's a direct link to the full news story and broader context). It's not exactly terror
threats and all-out movie cancellations and fragile international relations, but still an unfortunate causality, so to speak, of the new flow of confidential information out of Culver City. It's also unfortunate, because the movie is terrific and
Washington is, again, stellar. Based on a 1980s television program of the same name, the film pairs Washington with an old friend in Director Antoine Fuqua (Tears of the Sun, Olympus Has Fallen). The end result isn't a masterpiece but
certainly a fun, slick, and exceptionally well made movie that doesn't simply re-imagine a 1980s television show but that also hearkens back to that same decade's penchant for precision Action films like Die Hard and Commando while also
exploring some deeper themes below the surface.
Robert McCall (Washington) lives alone, rarely, if at all, sleeping, and doing everything he does -- from folding up a tea bag in a napkin for later usage to brushing off his shoes -- with unmatched precision and muscle memory. He works at a home
improvement warehouse, doing largely menial tasks -- stocking shelves, cutting wood -- but he has taken a pudgy employee (Johnny Skourtis) who wishes to become the store's security guard under his wing. McCall spends his nights at a 24-hour diner, reading
classic literature. There, he gets to know a young prostitute and aspiring singer/songwriter named Teri (Chloë Grace Moretz) who he comes to realize works for Russian pimps who badly mistreat her. When she's beaten to a point that she must spend some time
in the hospital, McCall makes it his mission to secure her freedom, one way or another. He ultimately comes to realize that he's not dealing with midlevel thugs but rather an organized crime empire that sends an unflappable and unstoppable hit man who
goes by the name "Teddy" (Marton Csokas) to stop him.
Though Washington and Fuqua don't recapture the same magic from their Training Day time together, their latest collaboration is nevertheless of high quality, a full, satisfying entertainer of the darker variety that in many ways, then, reflects the
grit and seediness of Training Day but here with more readily defined heroes and villains. While Training Day played in gray areas that slowly evolved to a more clear delineation of right and wrong, The Equalizer's heroes and villains
are made known from the outset, and that separation, in this case, makes the movie one that the audience can get behind right away in a classic good-versus-evil story. At the same time, though, The Equalizer plays around with themes that don't push
away the moral clarity but that instead give shape to it, that give the hero a purpose beyond raw vigilantism or standing up for the little guy, so to speak. Ideas on one's place in the world and an individual's shaping through past experience are
explored in metaphor and are presented as the driving forces not so much behind McCall's remarkable ability to dole out justice but instead as moral justifications for a violent response to violence, even if it spins out of control and turns into a
bloodbath well beyond his initial contacts with wrongdoers. The movie, then, isn't very remarkable on the surface, playing with simple themes that have played central before, but Washington and Fuqua add a depth to the main character that so often feels
missing in other, similar pictures.
That character development is critical in not so much rallying the audience around Washington's McCall -- people will gravitate to him, anyway, because he's the good guy -- but in the positive reinforcements it engenders, thereby better defining the
character and giving the movie and the world and people that inhabit it a greater sense of worth beyond stock. The film precisely defines Washington's Robert McCall in the first five minutes and spends the next fifteen settling him into a routine both at
work and at the diner, two locations which are home to two people who play key roles in the movie. The McCall character isn't so much novel, but he is so well developed that he'll feel like a friend rather than some intangible figure who lives only to
kill people to finely-tuned movie magic fight choreography. On one side, he's depicted as the ultimate friend, someone who is encouraging and won't stop politely and humorously nudging to get the best out of someone. He's an honest, caring man, someone
who lives to benefit others rather than himself, all qualities he takes to the other extreme where he doles out justice to those who would hurt his innocent friends. His violent side makes use of the same precision and disregard for personal gain that
defines his daily life. His is a fascinating dichotomy of the same characteristics spilling over into two completely different types of person that inhabit the same body. In essence, he carries the tenderness of his friends and the ruthlessness of his
enemies in all that he does. Better hope to be his friend, to see his smile rather than his "you're dead, and we both know it" gaze.
Ultimately, the movie is about two unstoppable forces -- McCall and Teddy -- that collide seemingly not by chance but rather by fate, a fate that has led each of them to one another through a body of work that's produced terrible results on both sides,
but with one the beneficiary of a conscience and a soul that would rather fight for values rather than fight for money or some inflated sense of self-worth. Both McCall and Teddy live to make the world a better place for some by making it hell for others.
Where they differ, of course, is in their definitions of "better" and "hell" and the people they strive to improve or degrade along the way. They engage in battle -- Teddy aided by plenty of additional bodies for McCall to destroy -- to seriously bloody
result in an end confrontation that's molded in a classic "stealth kill" sort of manner and in an environment that provides the hero with plenty of creative options at his disposal to remove his opponents from the battlefield. However, their finest
encounter comes not with fists clenched but rather at a sit-down meting that's one of the movie's finest sequences, a meeting in which McCall gains the upper hand by way of his unflinching absence of fear even in the presence of what amounts to the
projection of the devil incarnate.
The Equalizer is superficially fun in a classic "revenge" or "vigilante" 1970s and 1980s style (slicked up for today's viewers, however), but it's much more satisfying than many of its kind considering its exceptional character development below
the obvious good-and-evil surface. Washington's portrayal of Robert McCall ranks amongst his best performances, the actor brilliantly balancing a man who is markedly different from what he appears to be but who, at the same time, brings all of his
positive characteristics to his violent side. He's a quintessential hero in the modern world, skilled at his craft but a man who would rather help a friend by encouraging them rather than simply destroying their enemies, something he will do, however, if
the situation demands it. It's another excellent pairing between Washington and Fuqua, putting the franchise in good hands with word of a potential sequel coming down the line. Sony's excellent Blu-ray release of The Equalizer features top-end
video and audio. A fair bit of bonus content is included. Consider this a late-arriving short list candidate for the best of 2014 list. Very highly recommended.
[CSW] -3.3- I agree with this reviewer:
Extremely everything you think it will be; extremely violent, extremely clique, extremely predictably ......BUT extremely AWESOME! We loved it! I have noticed that the critics either love it of hate it and I agree that is how it will be with
most people. So here goes my opinion. I think in places The Equilizer seems a bit slow at the beginning (better said, it is methodical), but when it takes off it is like a rocket. Make no mistakes this is a extremely violent, vulgar language
revenge film . For those who care there is no nudity just a few racy pictures. To say too much about the plot would give too many spoilers. So I'll just put it this way...If the movie Taken and the comic The Punisher had a child it would be
The Equilizer.
[V5.0-A5.0] MPEG-4 AVC - D-Box 10/10.
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