The Equalizer (2014)

The Equalizer (2014)

8/10

Starring

Denzel Washington

Chloë Grace Moretz

Directed by Antoine Fuqua

To be honest, for me, the film is just about violence in the most stylish fashion that the writers could come up with. The possibility of the events or even an idea of trying to make the script meaningful didn’t matter to them at all. They had Denzel Washington in their corner dishing out the violence, and they had even me interested to see how the film will play out, and I bet you are too.

I have seen this movies so many times just for the beauty of how Denzel handled the character and how the character handled situations.

The film is based on a CBS television series in 1985 of the same name that ran for four seasons. Both film and TV series had the same foundation. About a retired espionage/intelligence officer with a past best known to him, he uses the skills from his former career to deliver justice on behalf of those who are being oppressed. Here in this film a young lady being used for prostitution, a friend’s mother being extorted by the police and a colleague who got robbed were the ones needing rescue. But the film's main focus arc, was the young lady named Teri, played by Chloë Grace Moretz.

The main plot has our lead, Robert McCall (Denzel Washington) develop a friendship with a young lady (Teri). They meet at a diner and just talk. He knows Teri works for a pimping organization who use her and many other young girls as prostitute, and he just minds his business.

One day, they both take a walk together, and Teri missed an appointment. She gets beaten and ends up in the hospital. Robert decided to confront the men who were responsible. He tries to buy her out of the business, and the men turned down his money. He then did what he knows best, killing all the men.

An enforcer was sent to handle the situation and we get to watch a showdown between the enforcer and Robert as they both try to outsmart one another and get one up over the person.

The man behind the camera in this film is Antoine Fuqua, whom I became aware of, when his film Olympus Has Fallen (2013) beat the star cast (Jamie Foxx, Channing Tatum and James Wood) White House Down (2013) in 2013 box office returns, when both movies were released 2 months apart and were about a terrorist attack on the White House.

Antoine's idea of a man who lived his life based on rules, timings and structure is what we see in this film and the result of what happens when these rules and structure are interrupted. The waste of time for me in this film is what many will see as suspense. I had already before seen the preview and I know this guy is similar to Liam Neeson in Taken (2008).

Then, when he stepped into the character the film just went on an adrenaline rush and things, started to happen at quick instances making me eager to see how the film was going to end up.

I enjoyed Chloë Grace Moretz character in the film, she was not present much in this film. She was more of a catalyst that yielded the cool performance of Denzel, but she marked her presence well in the film. She is a great actress, and we only get to see her in the beginning before Denzel went psycho and started taking down all who hurt her, then we see her in the end, when Denzel had taken care of business.

There is no reason why you should not see this film, it was entertaining.