Movie Review: The Equalizer

We all remember Training Day. The movie that nobody can say is bad. The one that elevated Denzel Washington to new levels. In the film he plays a crooked cop named Alonzo who spends the day training a rookie named Jake. During the film he robs drug dealers, frames gang members and demonstrates that he has the final say on his turf. He also forces Jake to take drugs under false pretenses. He robs a retired drug lord so that he can pay off some mobsters. In the end Jake and Alonzo's neighborhood turns their backs on him. This leads to Alonzo meeting his demise at the hands of some angry mobsters. Recently Washington starred in a film called The Equalizer. In the film Washington plays a retired black ops agent named Robert McCall and enters into some Alonzo style hijinks. The best way to describe The Equalizer is it's what would have happened if Alonzo lived in Training Day and that's not a bad thing at all. Let's start by looking at the plot of the film.

The story starts with Robert just after his wife died. He promised leave his old ways behind him. He probably counted on a clock. He counts everything in seconds on his watch. He befriends a woman at a diner he frequents. One night he sees her being abused by her pimp. He tries to stop it by talking and they give him a card where he can get another prostitute. He goes to their place of business with $9800, all the money he has. The boss laughs at him about the $9000 and Robert keeps saying it's $9800. Eventually he snaps and kills them all while keeping track of time on his watch. It was an awesome scene. He then said some things Alonzo would say. My favorite was "That girl you beat half to death will wake up tomorrow and keep living, your life is about to end on this dirty floor over $9800. Is $9800 worth it." The guy couldn't answer, there was a hole in his neck.

Robert continues to feud with the Russian mob and corrupt police. Eventually he goes to Moscow and finishes off the Russian Mob solo. Afterwards he posts an ad on Craigslist offering to help people with any problems they may have, calling himself the Equalizer. I love when movies use the name in the movie.

The story isn't the greatest but the action is incredible, especially because Denzel is starting to get up there in age. The moral of this story is don't give Denzel a bus pass. If you're looking for a touching movie with a great story like Remember The Titans this won't be it. This is a straight action flick. It's got some great action by the way. The fight scenes are excellently choreographed. They also do it without making use of the slow motion effect that every action movie seems to be intent on using every since The Matrix.

I wouldn't call Equalizer a bad movie. If you know what to expect when you watch it you're going to enjoy. The story is just enough to get by and not annoy you with how bad it is. It's not winning any awards for writing. The best part of the writing is all of the one liners that Robert lets out. It's a great action movie and that's what you should take it as.

You can hear Darrell on the CP Time and Powerbomb Jutsu podcasts. He's also playing Pokemon Liquid Crystal on YouTube
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