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The Equalizer 3 (R16, 109 mins) Directed by Antoine Fuqua ***½
One thing we learn early in The Equalizer 3, about Robert “The Equalizer” McCall, is that he never watched The Wire.
If McCall had, he surely would have remembered how legendary stick-up man Omar met his end. And he would not have turned his back on a child at a crime scene, no matter how angelic and innocent that child appeared.
But McCall has made an error of judgement – one of very few, we guess – and now he is laid up at the home of a doctor, in some ridiculously idyllic Sicilian fishing village, nestled into the cliffs that tumble into the azure sea.
McCall has had a bullet removed from the vicinity of his liver – and is now in recovery. He makes a great friend of Enzo, the doctor – who assures him the nature of his wound will be kept a secret, so McCall will not come to the attention of the local branch of the Camorra.
It’s too late. McCall has been poking that wasp nest with a stick already. And now his presence is putting the village at risk of further incursions from the thugs and criminals who wish to turn this ancient coastline into a personal piggy-bank of casinos and resorts.
McCall, of course, resolves to put the bad guys out of business in the only way he knows.
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Denzel Washington has returned for a third – and potentially final – time as Robert McCall aka The Equalizer.
Denzel Washington’s McCall is a likeable addition to that standard fiction trope, the man-alone-who-saves-the-town. McCall is more conversational than Jack Reacher and less-damaged than the Johns Rambo and Wick. He is kept motivated by an unsinkable sense of fair play and a wry way with a one-liner that mines Washington’s deep reserves of intelligence and charm.
Director Antoine Fuqua wisely choreographs Washington’s action scenes as wily and compact ambushes, in which McCall out-thinks his opponents to destroy them, rather than asking us to believe 68-year-old Washington is taking on roomfuls of trained killers a third of his age and beating them at physical combat. McCall gets in close with his knives and his booby-traps and barely seems to raise a sweat as the bodies pile up in his wake.
Back in 2014, I thought the original instalment of this trilogy was a gratuitous load of mean-spirited rubbish that insulted the memory of Edward Woodward and the TV series that inspired the film. It seemed to me then Fuqua’s approach to the material and the audience wasn’t too different from how I imagine we might pronounce his surname.
But, either the films have improved, or I’ve found a bit more joy in my life. In 2018, I enjoyed The Equalizer 2 far more than I was expecting to – and I can say the same for this third – and probably final – outing.
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The Equalizer 3 reunites Washington with his old Man on Fire co-star Dakota Fanning.
Washington is a formidable actor and he makes this unlikely hero into someone more rounded and approachable than the genre usually achieves. The setting is stunning and three-time-Oscar-winning cinematographer Robert Richardson (JFK, The Aviator, Kill Bill) lets his cameras drink it in.
There is just enough drama, character and storytelling here to justify the talent on and behind the screen. But when the violence arrives, it earns that R16 sticker in seconds.
If this genre ain’t for you, that’s fine. But if you are still a sucker for the whole modern-day-Samurai school of film-making, then The Equalizer 3 will make you happy you shelled out to see it on a real screen.
The Equalizer 3 is now screening in cinemas nationwide.
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