Movie Review: “The Equalizer” (Rated R)
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Sony/Columbia(NEW YORK) — Loosely based on the 1980s TV show of the same name, The Equalizer stars Denzel Washington as Robert McCall, an obsessive-compulsive bookworm just trying to fit in. McCall works in a Home Depot-like store in Boston, where his younger co-workers look up to him and he’s always able and willing to lend a helping hand, because that’s just the kind of guy Robert is. Or perhaps, that’s the kind of guy Robert needs to be, in order to get away from his past.
Our hero also likes to do some late-night eating and reading at a local diner. It’s where he strikes up a nightly conversation with a prostitute named Teri (Chloë Grace Moretz). She’s interested in what he’s reading, and he’s interested in sharing the wisdom he’s gleaned from the literary classics he loves.
Robert and Teri form a special bond, and not a creepy older-man-young-hooker kind of vibe. Robert’s role with Teri is paternal and inspirational, which is why “stuff” gets real when her psycho Russian mobster pimp puts Teri in the hospital after nearly beating her to death.
This is when we start to learn some things about Robert. Like his ability to walk, unarmed, into a room full of armed Russian gangsters and wipe them all out in under 30 seconds. He did it to avenge Teri, but the fallout gets him engaged in a war with the Russian mob, and the brutal Teddy (Martin Csokas), who will kill anyone and anything to find out the identity of the man who wiped out his best soldiers. Let the butt-kicking begin.
The Equalizer reunites Washington with Antoine Fuqua, who directed Washington to a best actor Oscar in 2001’s Training Day, still Fuqua’s best movie. There will be no Oscar nominations for this movie, however. Of course, Washington is compelling to watch: he’s Denzel Washington. But two hours and 12 minutes is too long to watch anyone in a gratuitously violent, predictable film that wears out its welcome half-an-hour before it ends.
Two-and-a-half out of five stars.
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