Movie Review: The Equalizer (2014)

"The Equalizer poster" by Source.
Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia.

From the director of Training Day comes a movie where Denzel Washington is smooth and kills people...just like most other Denzel films. Watch it anyway, obviously.

Apart from Denzel, there are three things that make The Equalizer a great watch: the cinematography, the soundtrack, and the action. Dear lord, the action. Boyfriend gets intense.

Denzel plays Robert McCall, a worker at a Home Depot lookalike. He's sweet, friendly, and helpful to his coworkers. He's a good guy. But his low-key facade is belied by his tics: his spotless apartment, obsession with timing his actions, and sleeplessness. It's on one of these sleepless nights that he encounters someone doing something "unspeakable," as he would say, and he decides to do something about it.

Just like in Man on Fire, Denzel's murder rampage is motivated by a protective instinct for a young girl. Unlike Man on Fire, I did not feel like I was having a seizure as he calmly shoots, stabs, gasses, etc. all the assorted baddies who foolishly cross his path. It turns out that they're part of a very large organization, and soon an enforcer arrives to find out who's messing things up.

This Final Dungeon mini-boss is played by Marton Csokas, who played the prince in that Drew Barrymore movie Ever After. In The Equalizer, Marton is princelike in that he wears expensive suits, works out of a high-rise with a view of the Boston Harbor Hotel, and eats at swanky restaurants. He's competent, ruthless, and backed by large men with high-powered guns and hilariously villainous beards.

But they're up against Denzel, who handsomes hardest of them all. He plays McCall as someone you really root for. Fragrant Husband and I had a bet going on whether or not his character would kick the bucket in a blaze of glory. And the answer is [REDACTED].

Oh, and Melissa Leo and Bill Pullman are also in this movie, to provide some backstory and also presumably to underline the theme of "Be who you are," which is resonant because Denzel says this to Chloe Grace Moretz's character who is trapped and can't be who she is, which is why he launched his bloody campaign in the first place: to free her to be who she wants to be.

My hero! (swoon)

TL; DR: Get the large popcorn for the eye-popping, one-sided fights. 

This post brought to you by yelling baby!