If you’re thinking about going seeing this movie perhaps you should have a look through your VHS collection and pick out an old Seagal movie instead, because The Equaliser isn’t going to offer you anything that you haven’t seen before, in fact it is probably the most uninventive movie of the year.
The film starts out with your typical lone ranger character working a dead end job because he’s all washed up, but everyone knows he’s some kinda neurotic psycho with a secret past. The character development continues with a focus on Denzel’s OCD, apparently having a fixation on time and neatness is an essential trait in being a Hollywood death machine. However Denzel also has a sensitive side as he likes to read books, and for the target audience who have never seen the inside cover of any of the featured novels, of which Denzel manages to read one a day, this is enough to convince them that Denzel is quite smart – an intelligent bad ass.
Enter the femme fatale, aspiring singer Teri who’s sexual nature is immediately coined by her role as a prostitute. Now Denzel could keep his head down here, enjoy his cupan tae and finish his 92nd book in peace, after all I’m sure every black ops agent who has been around the block - to the point that they fake their own death in order to receive their P45, has seen enough bad things in the world to consider reporting local prostitution to the police, would it be so incomprehensible for the police to step in and hook the girl up with social services - where she might receive some counseling, a place to stay, maybe even some support in finding a job.
Of course Teri isn’t your standard run of the mill call girl, Denzel recognizes that she is a singer and sparks up some conversation, he begins to fall for the girl’s charms/personality but it also helps that she’s a total babe. In an unusual turn of events the hero decides to buy the girl from the head pimp for exactly $9,600 (dollars). Why? Is that what a girl is worth?, is it the cost of human traffic per head?, is this all the money Denzel has?, is it the cost of a year’s supply of choc ices?, we never find out. What I do know is that Denzel by passes the security of the Russian mafia to arrive unarmed in the head office of Russia’s number one pimp and takes out four armed mobsters before returning home to finish reading ‘The Ingenious Gentleman’.
Predictably in such a movie when you kill four members of the mob it sets off a chain of events that result in bigger fish wanting the lead character/hero killed with immediate effect. Denzel continues about his business completely unarmed throughout, good guys don’t need to carry guns, but as the violence escalates the mobsters bring bigger and bigger fire arms to the table, does it matter much, of course not, because Denzel is basically some kind of DC comics character for grown ups or knuckle heads to be more precise.
We eventually get the big Hollywood explosion scene with Denzel walking away while the fire erupts behind him, but by this point the ship has already sunk on the movie. There are no meaningful twists, moments of suspense, sub plots, or interesting characters, just 101 ways Denzel can kill a Russian gangster.
When the mafia guys eventually close in on Denzel we get to see him react like a one man A-Team, taking out a well armed group of men by using power drills and sticks of glue.
The movie ends with Denzel hunting down the crime boss, who is revealed to have some kind of hearing disability whereby he can hear everything up close perfectly fine but is completely unaware of gunshots fired in the perimeter around his home moments earlier.
All in all it's a rehashed movie script that just doesn't excite, not really worth leaving the house for.
The film starts out with your typical lone ranger character working a dead end job because he’s all washed up, but everyone knows he’s some kinda neurotic psycho with a secret past. The character development continues with a focus on Denzel’s OCD, apparently having a fixation on time and neatness is an essential trait in being a Hollywood death machine. However Denzel also has a sensitive side as he likes to read books, and for the target audience who have never seen the inside cover of any of the featured novels, of which Denzel manages to read one a day, this is enough to convince them that Denzel is quite smart – an intelligent bad ass.
Enter the femme fatale, aspiring singer Teri who’s sexual nature is immediately coined by her role as a prostitute. Now Denzel could keep his head down here, enjoy his cupan tae and finish his 92nd book in peace, after all I’m sure every black ops agent who has been around the block - to the point that they fake their own death in order to receive their P45, has seen enough bad things in the world to consider reporting local prostitution to the police, would it be so incomprehensible for the police to step in and hook the girl up with social services - where she might receive some counseling, a place to stay, maybe even some support in finding a job.
Of course Teri isn’t your standard run of the mill call girl, Denzel recognizes that she is a singer and sparks up some conversation, he begins to fall for the girl’s charms/personality but it also helps that she’s a total babe. In an unusual turn of events the hero decides to buy the girl from the head pimp for exactly $9,600 (dollars). Why? Is that what a girl is worth?, is it the cost of human traffic per head?, is this all the money Denzel has?, is it the cost of a year’s supply of choc ices?, we never find out. What I do know is that Denzel by passes the security of the Russian mafia to arrive unarmed in the head office of Russia’s number one pimp and takes out four armed mobsters before returning home to finish reading ‘The Ingenious Gentleman’.
Predictably in such a movie when you kill four members of the mob it sets off a chain of events that result in bigger fish wanting the lead character/hero killed with immediate effect. Denzel continues about his business completely unarmed throughout, good guys don’t need to carry guns, but as the violence escalates the mobsters bring bigger and bigger fire arms to the table, does it matter much, of course not, because Denzel is basically some kind of DC comics character for grown ups or knuckle heads to be more precise.
We eventually get the big Hollywood explosion scene with Denzel walking away while the fire erupts behind him, but by this point the ship has already sunk on the movie. There are no meaningful twists, moments of suspense, sub plots, or interesting characters, just 101 ways Denzel can kill a Russian gangster.
When the mafia guys eventually close in on Denzel we get to see him react like a one man A-Team, taking out a well armed group of men by using power drills and sticks of glue.
The movie ends with Denzel hunting down the crime boss, who is revealed to have some kind of hearing disability whereby he can hear everything up close perfectly fine but is completely unaware of gunshots fired in the perimeter around his home moments earlier.
All in all it's a rehashed movie script that just doesn't excite, not really worth leaving the house for.
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