The Equalizer (2014)
9/10
The best part of The Equalizer was when Denzel Washington, in the role of former U.S. Marine and Defense Intelligence Agency officer Robert McCall, said, “It’s equalizin’ time!” and equalized all over those guys. In all seriousness, this is a great action vehicle for Washington, one of the last true movie stars and an actor who can play “cool, unflappable badass” better than almost anyone. I’ve never seen the 1980s Equalizer TV show this film is loosely based on. But working with director Antoine Fuqua—a frequent collaborator since the star’s Oscar-winning performance in Training Day—and screenwriter Richard Wenk, Washington crafts a memorable character in McCall, one I immediately wanted to see more of.
Like many action movies, there’s a healthy dose of propaganda running through The Equalizer. As the film starts, McCall is a widower living alone in Boston and working at a Home Depot-style hardware store. He spends most of his free time reading books, working his way through the same list of “100 Books to Read Before You Die” his late wife was. Often he reads late at night in a local diner. There he befriends teenage prostitute Teri (Chloë Grace-Moretz), an aspiring singer being trafficked by the Russian mafia. When a mobster beats her so badly she ends up in the ICU, McCall reveals he possesses a “very particular set of skills”, to quote another older action hero, and enforces his brand of vigilante justice. McCall’s violent “equalizing” of that situation makes him a target of the Russian mob and corrupt cops.
The aforementioned propaganda themes of The Equalizer can be boiled down to these: U.S. military and intelligence agencies are cool and good, Russians are bad. Oh, you might respond, but this film isn’t saying all Russians are bad, just the Russian mafia. Valid point, but it still continues a long tradition of Russians being Hollywood’s favourite villains. The Equalizer was released in 2014, around the time Western media began to paint Russia and Vladimir Putin as the source of all the world’s ills—a propaganda point that would explode with the election of Donald Trump in 2016 and reach still greater intensity after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Part of what made millions of people so susceptible to the demonization of Russia and Russians is that generations were raised with films and TV that consistently depicted Russians as bad guys. It’s sufficient to point to a comedy bit by Trevor Noah about how merely possessing a Russian accent makes a person seem scary and villainous to him.
After the end of the Cold War, Russian villains remained a mainstay of U.S. film and TV shows, now often in the form of oligarchs and mobsters. There’s a hefty dose of irony here, since the Russian mafia was largely suppressed during the Soviet era. It was the restoration of capitalism that led to the rise of the oligarchs, resurgence of the mafia, and return of such wonders of the free market as unemployment and prostitution in Russia. Of course Russia and the Soviet Union tend to get conflated in popular culture. To be fair, many Russians apparently do the same—the legacy of the Soviet bureaucracy’s nationalist degeneration based on Stalin’s “theory” of “socialism in one country”. One of the dead Russian mobsters in The Equalizer, for example, is shown with a hammer and sickle tattoo.
On the American side, The Equalizer continues a Hollywood trend which has only grown over the years of portraying veterans of the military, special forces, intelligence agencies, etc. as borderline superheroes. Robert McCall in this film is essentially Batman. He toys with his enemies, turns out the lights to sow confusion and fear, and disarms and kills adversaries with almost superhuman speed and agility. He figures out who people are working for, what their goals are, etc. based on clues with skills that rival those of “the world’s greatest detective”. When we see McCall about to go into action, Fuqua zooms in on Washington’s eyes taking stock of his environment: the weapons of nearby goons, tattoos on their arms, layout of the room, etc.
Having said all that? The scenes of McCall wreaking havoc on these villains are also awesome to watch. Washington fights with an economy of movement that convinces us a man pushing 60 could take out a room full of armed Russian mobsters in less than 30 seconds. The R-rated action is brutal and bloody, as it should be, ranking up there with Nobody (which also featured a Russian mob boss as the villain). The heavies commit vile deeds that make it satisfying to watch them get their comeuppance. The film stages action in inventive ways, such as by holding a climactic sequence in the warehouse of the hardware store, where McCall is obliged to improvise weapons based on his surroundings.
The Equalizer has a better villain than many action movies in the form of Nicolai Itchenko (Marton Csokas), aka “Teddy”. Itchenko is a former Spetsnaz operative turned enforcer for Russian oligarch Vladimir Pushkin (Vladimir Kulich), and proves a well-matched foe for McCall. Both characters are smooth operators and excellent fighters, with a background in state security services and knack for deflecting any challenge thrown at them, whether physical or verbal. The scene where McCall and Itchenko exchange barbs at a restaurant is alternatively tense and amusing, and well played by both actors.
David Harbour has a turn as corrupt Boston PD detective Frank Masters, who is on Pushkin’s payroll. Masters is the focus of a scene where The Equalizer effectively glorifies torture. It might feel less egregious in the context of an action movie than in a “serious” drama like Zero Dark Thirty, which is far more explicit CIA propaganda. Nevertheless, McCall is portrayed as heroic when he traps Masters in his car with a hose pumping in carbon monoxide, and rolls the window up and down to force him to talk. Maybe I should praise the film for accurately showing that U.S. state agents, even former ones, torture people.
In any case, The Equalizer is a strong actioner. It’s a slow burn, but that pacing makes the action all the more memorable. There are nice supporting characters like McCall’s co-worker Ralphie (Johnny Skourtis), whom McCall is helping meet his physical requirements for a security guard test. The film sprinkles in subplots of McCall helping other people through vigilante justice, which serve as a nice supplement to the main story. McCall’s reading habit makes for some nice literary references, particularly The Old Man and the Sea, that reinforce the movie’s themes. The dialogue is often witty and memorable. Above all, Robert McCall is a classic action hero played by a great actor. Looking forward to the rest of the trilogy.