2014 Sony Pictures

Rated: R

Length: 2h 12 min

Action ~ Crime ~ Thriller

Starring: Denzel Washington, Marton Csokas, Chloë Grace Moretz, David Harbour, Bill Pullman, and Melissa Leo.

“The two most important days in your life are the day you were born and the day you find out why.”

Denzel Washington stars as Robert McCall quietly living an unassuming life in Boston Massachusetts. He lives very sparsely in an apartment above a bar and works at Home Mart, a big box home improvement store. He has OCD and often can’t sleep at night so he goes down to the local diner to have a cup of tea and read. He always meticulously wraps his own tea bag in his own napkin together with a spoon to take with him. Always sitting at the same table in the diner, and meticulously unfolding the napkin as a placemat.

Robert befriends a young prostitute named Teri who frequents the diner at night in between turning tricks. As they get to know each other, Teri reveals her real name is Alina and wants to be a singer. Robert encourages her and says she can change her life and do anything she wants to do. One night as they are walking home from the diner, Alina’s pimp Slavi pulls up, slaps her and forces her into his car. She assures Robert it’s ok as she is forced into the car. Slavi hands Robert a business card and says “This girl is no good. Call me and I will get you another.”

A couple of days later Robert finds out Alina is in the ICU and learns from her friend Mandy that Slavi beat Alina up to make an example of her to the other girls. Robert wrestles with staying anonymous or approaching Slavi. The side of Robert we don’t know about wins out and he goes to the restaurant where Slavi and his men are in their office. He makes his way in and offers to buy Alina’s freedom from Slavi for $9800 cash he has in an envelope, and places it on Slavi’s desk. Slavi ridicules him and tells Robert to take his money and go home.

Robert heads to go out the door but instead shuts the door and locks it. He turns around to face Slavi and his men, sets the timer on his watch, and that’s when we find out who Robert McCall really is. A former Marine Special Forces Commando who faked his own death to disappear and live a quiet life. Now these Russian mobsters have interrupted that life and hurt someone he was starting to care about. He promptly decimates the whole crew and stops his watch timer….19 seconds it took him. He tells Slavi as he is bleeding to death, “You should have taken the money.”

Robert soon finds out through his former DIA colleague Susan Plummer (Melissa Leo) that Slavi and his men were part of a large East Coast Russian Crime Syndicate. Russian Oligarch Vladimir Pushkin, who heads the syndicate, being furious that his men are dead and business has stopped sends his fixer Teddy Rensen to investigate. What follows is Robert McCall, The Equalizer, singlehandedly kicking butt and dismantling the entire east coast syndicate.

I wanted to review The Equalizer 3 and decided it best to revisit 1 and 2 before I did.

What’s not to like, Denzel Washington is one of my all time favorites. He is excellent in this. Non stop action as he neutralizes the bad guys and gets justice for Alina and anyone else wronged in his life.

Yes, yes and yes.

Highly Recommended!

Two Thumbs Up!

NEWS FLASH!!!!

DENZEL WASHINGTON to film

EQUALIZER 4 & 5!

According to an interview with Esquire Magazine dated November 19, 2024 Denzel Washington said:

“I told them we would do another Equalizer, and we’re doing 4 & 5. People are happy about that, they love those daggone Equalizers. But I’ve come to realize that they are for me too, because they’re for the people. They want me to get the bad guys. “We can’t get them so you go get them.” And I say…”Okay, I’ll go get them. Just wait right there and I’ll be right back.”