The Equalizer (2014)

Starring: Denzel Washington, Marton Csokas, Chloë Grace Moretz, David Harbour, Bill Pullman, and Melissa Leo
Grade: A

You can’t help but laugh when Teddy tells Pushkin, “Whoever did this specialized in killing”. Yeah, that’s the understatement of the year.

Summary

To open, we are given a quote from Mark Twain saying, “The two most important days in your life are the day you were born and the day you find out why”.

It’s 7:30AM in Boston, Massachusetts, and Robert McCall (Washington) is already up and well into his morning, getting ready for work. He works at a home improvement store and is well-liked by his coworkers. Around lunchtime, he sits with his friend Ralphie (Johnny Skourtis) in the breakroom. Right away, he asks what the ingredients are on Ralphie’s sandwich because McCall is helping him lose weight before his security guard exam. It’s happening in a week. All the ingredients sound good, but the crunch in his sandwich is obvious. McCall investigates to find that he snuck potato chips inside, so he reminds Ralphie he has to apply himself if he wants to take this seriously. Understanding, Ralphie picks the chips off and they share a laugh together. Later, McCall goes home and quietly reads on the bus. He eats dinner, cleans the dishes and the sink, and clocks in the time it took on his watch. That night, he can’t sleep, so he goes out to a 24/7 diner. He brings his teabag with him and his book The Old Man and the Sea. While sitting at his usual spot by his lonesome, he neatly moves around his silverware in a peculiar way. Sitting at the counter is teenage sex worker Teri (Moretz). As the waiter brings over hot water for McCall to use his teabag, Teri opens conversation by asking about plot details from his book, which he happily responds back since they know each other. Teri has dreams of being a singer, and she’s yet another local who McCall imparts wisdom to. Noticing what she’s eating, McCall asks when she plans on giving up refined sugar since it’s bad for her vocal cords, and she half-heartedly says any day now as she eats it.

Next, Teri tells McCall she bought a little machine for making demos, so he gives her words of encouragement. Before she leaves, she asks to hear the conclusion of his book once he gets there, and he smiles and agrees. The next day at work, two workers at the home improvement store are betting what McCall did before he worked there, and they approach him to ask. He jokingly tells them he was a member of Gladys Knight & the Pips before doing a dance and getting a big laugh from everyone, prompting the two to look up a Soul Train video, trying to see if they can find him. At 2:06AM, McCall is once again hanging at the diner at his regular table. Teri shows up, different wig and all, after a rough night at work. She sees McCall and asks if the guy caught the fish in his book since she sees he’s reading a new one. Once he confirms it, she assumes it’s a happy ending, but McCall explains it’s a bit more nuanced than that. He tells her how the old man tied the fish to the side of the boat, the fish bled in the water, and sharks came and ate the fish. However, he counters what she calls a “wasteful” ending with the fact that the old man faced his greatest adversary when he thought he was done with that life. The man saw himself in the fish, so he found himself respecting it the more it fought. She doesn’t get it and asks why he didn’t just let it go, but McCall says they are who they are. You got to be who you are in this world. The words start to set in with Teri, who hears the car outside honking for her. Then, her phone starts ringing, as her pimp Slavi (David Meunier) is calling. He demands she go out to meet with this client who is waiting for her, but she doesn’t want to because this guy is a pig. Unfortunately, this guy asked specifically for her, so she’s forced to go. As she holds back tears, she gets in the back of the limo as McCall watches it all before going back to reading.

Sometime after, McCall helps Ralphie train somewhere shouting words of encouragement as Ralphie pulls a tire to help him prepare for his security guard exam. That night, McCall goes back to the diner and gifts a bruised Teri some birthday cake he saved from some guy at work. She walks over to his table, and he’s initially uneasy, which she can sense. She considers going back to the counter, but McCall relents and offers the chair for her to sit down. They finally introduce themselves, but McCall refers to himself as “Bob”, and Teri admits her real name is Alina. He asks about her face, but she downplays it as “something stupid”. Changing the subject, she gives him a copy of her demo and asks for him to give his honest opinion on it. He’s happy to and encourages her dreams once again, though she doubts her ability to move past her current situation. They discuss McCall’s widower status, how McCall’s deceased wife was a big book reader, how she was making her way through “100 Books Everybody Should Read” and managed to make it to 97 before she passed. This is what got him into reading, and he’s at 91 right now. Eventually, they’ll have something to talk about someday, which makes Teri/Alina tear up. They are interrupted by Alina’s cell phone going off, though she doesn’t answer it. McCall eases the tension with some jokes, and they go out for a walk in the night and have a pleasant conversation. As they are about to their separate ways near McCall’s house, Slavi shows up with one of his bodyguards and grabs Alina, hitting her for what she did to a client and for not answering his phone calls. They give McCall a card to pick up some other girl and drive off, with him taking mental notes of the car once they go. The next day, McCall goes about his business as usual and hits up the diner at the end of the night. There is no sign of Alina. The next night, it’s the same thing. Upon entering that second night, the owner of the diner in Jake tells McCall she’s in the ICU at Shawmut.

Immediately, he heads over to the hospital to see her. He doesn’t enter her room, preferring to look in on her through the window. There, he sees one of Alina’s co-workers Mandy (Haley Bennett) console her. In the lobby, McCall reads, approaching Mandy when she gets some coffee. She’s an emotional wreck and spills some until McCall calms her down and asks her how Alina is doing. The two talk about what happened. Mandy reveals that Slavi hit Alina, so she hit back, prompting him to make an example out of her. It’s something they do as reminder for those who get out of line, with Mandy recalling that one girl got her face burned with battery acid as a punishment and was kept around after. In regard to Alina, Slavi said that next time, he’d cut her throat because “a whore who fucks and can’t talk might be worth twice as much”. At home, McCall observes the card Slavi gave him along with Alina’s demo. What has happened to Alina starts to eat at him because he does care for this poor girl. At a fancy Russian restaurant one night, Slavi goes upstairs to meet with his fellow criminals to ask if they collected from some guy named Dimitri. They did. Apparently, he asked for forgiveness too, which they laugh off. Just then, McCall enters the prohibited room, walks right up to Slavi, and asks about Alina. Slavi denies knowing her, as his other cohorts get a little bit closer. Fixing things on Slavi’s desk, McCall offers him $9,800 cash for Alina’s freedom. At first, Slavi is offended at the action but laughs it off saying that he respects his balls for walking in there and trying such a thing. Slavi’s counteroffer is to give him one month with Alina because he makes this type of money off Alina in two weeks. She’s worth more because he can still sell her as a virgin because of her age. Doubling down, Slavi says to try again sometime later once she’s older and used up because she might be worth nothing by then. Realizing this is a waste of time, McCall takes back his money and slyly moves the skull figurines on Slavi’s desk to directly point at the three key figures in the room. He walks to the door, closes it three times, and locks it.

Turning around, he takes a quick mental note of every man in the room, every weapon, and everything that can be used as a weapon. He times his watch for 16 seconds and kills everyone in the room, clocking in at 28 seconds. He sits on the ground next to Slavi, who’s bleeding out and tells him that this happened over a measly $9,800 and how he should have taken the money. Slavi dies, as McCall quietly says to himself, “I’m sorry”. At home, he cleans off the blood, puts his wedding ring on, and is soundly asleep at 2:29AM, a rarity for him.

At work the next day, Ralphie gifts McCall a can of Pringles. He’s initially disappointed, but he tells McCall to open it. There’s a paper with the number “247” on it. He made the weight thanks to McCall, and he’s ready for that security exam tomorrow. He notices a scar on McCall’s hand, but he chalks it up to hitting it on “something stupid”. Later, McCall watches the news at home, and they are calling his execution of Slavi and his group a turf war between rival gangs, which pretty much puts him in the clear. Sometime after, Teddy (Marton Csokas) gets off his private jet and directly into a car with Morgan Pederson (James Wilcox) and Frank Masters (Harbour). He wants to be taken to the murder scene of Slavi. Teddy looks at the photographs of the victim and surveys the scene. Masters says it was two or three guys, and Pederson says none of their informants knew it was going down. The security system was taken, so Teddy demands security cam footage from everywhere within a 6-block radius, telling them to call a specific number if they have any problems. Teddy asks to be driven to his residence, but Masters balks at the request and threatens him. Teddy sits down with everyone and talks about his flight, and the issue this has caused with Vladimir Pushkin’s (Vladimir Kulich) operation in Boston, with all movement of goods and such being temporarily ceased until everything is resolved. Teddy is the person who is called in to take over when Pushkin is pissed off, and he makes it known. Masters isn’t scared in the slightest, but Teddy reminds them that they have taken Pushkin’s money for years and it comes with non-negotiable conditions. This includes knowing that Teddy is now the boss while he is here.

This criminal empire will do everything in their power to find the person who did this, and it will put everyone in danger. Of course, some of these people are people who Robert McCall deeply cares for. If Teddy and the corrupt Boston cops want a war, they’re going to get it.

My Thoughts:

Reimaging the beloved 1980s television series for the modern era, The Equalizer is a splendid adaptation that effectively brings back the multimedia franchise for a whole new crop of fans. More importantly, it finally gives Denzel Washington an action franchise to call his own, something that should have happened a long time ago. Antoine Fuqua takes over for the late great Tony Scott as Washington’s go-to action director, and they create some serious magic together with one of the best vigilante thrillers of the 2010s.

After revisiting this franchise, Robert McCall has grown to become one of my favorite “action hero” characters of all time. It’s very different from Edward Woodward’s version of McCall, but it fits the story they are trying to tell as well as the persona of our star. Everyone loves the charismatic Denzel Washington. In the first part of the movie, McCall is much like the real Washington. Now an elder statesman, McCall goes to work, reads, and tries to be a model citizen. At the same time, he’s liked by all because of his authenticity. It’s not a quality every actor has. A lot of the time, a person can see through the phoniness or say to themselves, “Yeah, there’s no way he’s like that in real life”. On all accounts however, Washington is known to be a classy gentlemen who’s a well-respected figure in the industry. As Robert McCall happily engages in conversation with people at work in a jovial manner before getting back to his tasks for the day or interacts with people at the local diner after hours, he very much aligns with who Washington is and it’s so beautiful to watch. It sounds simple, right? We’re just watching a personable, respected citizen interact with their surroundings, who only steps in when he sees people need to hear some words that could change one’s direction in life or maybe change the direction of their day. Really, he’s right. Sometimes, people get lost and need some words of encouragement or positive reinforcement from others to keep them on the right path. This is why he befriends a sweet soul like Ralphie who just needs someone to push him to prepare for his security guard exam and why McCall can sense he push a little further with him because someone like Ralphie needs it to stay on track like with working out or eating right. Even so, he’s not impossible. Remember, “Progress, not perfection”. It’s all about effort.

With Alina, played by the always prepared Chloë Grace Moretz, we can see a different approach. He knows her situation as a sex worker but doesn’t pry because it’s a touchy subject. Plus, it could drive a combustible personality to do crazy things if he just starts directly preaching at her like he’s her father. Most men would but not McCall. He could see himself as the community’s leader and try to cut in and tell anyone who’s doing wrong how they should live their lives, but he doesn’t do this because he knows people. In addition, he doesn’t want nor need this status, as he leads by example. Despite him being this world-renowned killer who could easily snap someone’s neck or drill someone’s head, he’s a soft man who understands humanity and how to approach all kinds of life. Here, he sees this ambitious teenager in a bad situation who thinks she’s at a dead end, despite her dreams of something bigger. His careful responses to everything Alina says to him are delightful. The dialogue is masterful, and Washington’s delivery with his nuggets of wisdom will inspire you in the midst of all the violence that is to come. When Alina talks about wanting to be a singer, he responds earnestly with that he bets she’s very good. For anyone else, it just sounds like someone blowing smoke up another’s ass, but with the way Washington says it, you just smile at his attempt to make her feel good. Still being a bit of a pessimist, Alina asks what could make him say that knowing he hasn’t heard her. McCall simply responds with, “Intuition”. Watching McCall work in these basic conversations is such a wonderful way to build our protagonist as a man who wants to do right by everyone. He doesn’t want anyone to doubt themselves and he inspires hard work out of the people he crosses paths with, with simple and eloquent dialogue performed by an absolute master of human interaction.

Strangely enough, it’s a skill that is right up there with his technical skills of murdering individuals.

McCall tells the sad Alina that she can be anything she wants to be, but she’s not entirely convinced saying, “Maybe in your world Robert. Doesn’t really happen in mine”. She wants to use her situation as an excuse, as we all do, but McCall hits her with the best line of the movie that shoots a hole directly in that argument with a powerful, “Change your world”. Does that not speak to you? We all know this is still a violent action thriller with a goal of getting your heart pumping, but the slowed down scenes revolving around character development should not be lost in the shuffle. They should not be forgotten about because this movie as a whole is well-written all around and hits on every aspect of emotion and drama alongside the brutality. Robert McCall is a multifaceted character, and it needs to be recognized. He’s not just the Batman of his community when it comes to stopping evil afoot. He’s also the Mr. Rogers. Now, though he deeply cares for the others in his community, McCall is someone who can be just fine on his own, living day-to-day reading to himself to honor his deceased wife. However, he is still lost. We don’t notice it at first because he’s such a joy to be around and he seems content, but Alina can sense it. She looks into his glazed eyes when talking about his wife whose death he’s still very affected by, and she can feel it. She sees McCall as not being necessarily sad in his current state but undeniably lost. It’s a line that makes you replay the first act in your head, and you start to notice the emptiness of McCall’s life, despite the beacon of light he is for others. His bus riding becomes lonelier, his inability to sleep but still wake up earlier than his alarm clock becomes worrisome, and his OCD tendencies are magnified because he doesn’t have much else to do without his wife by his side. He’s living life, but something is missing. He doesn’t have a purpose. He’s just existing.

Then, just like the Mark Twain quote to open the movie, the second most important day of McCall’s life comes: the day he finds out why he was born.

We’ve been building up to the moment in a picture perfect way, and his description of his most recent book to Alina when they go out for a walk in the middle of the night is a great example of how a simple line can tell a story about your character and foreshadow where the story is going, as McCall talks about his book being “about a guy who thinks he’s a knight in shining armor, except he lives in a world where knights don’t exist anymore”. Robert McCall is this knight in the cruel underbelly of a corrupt Boston landscape. He is a knight that can’t turn a blind eye anymore because someone close to him has been hurt. If he doesn’t do it, nobody will. Slavi will continue his criminal ways and mistreatment of others. Even so, McCall still gives him one last chance. When he goes right to Slavi’s place, he tries to avoid official vigilante activity by offering Slavi a choice, a detail that McCall carries with him in each succeeding film. Though it may not be much in the grand scheme of Slavi’s business, McCall offers money to buy Alina’s freedom. Unfortunately, it’s refused and Slavi doubles down with an insulting response about Alina’s future. Of course, McCall has done all he can do. He gave them the choice, but now he has to act, viciously killing every single one of these evil bastards with a plain-faced expression that only a professional killer would possess in such a violent moment. Washington’s face tells a story in that moment. Robert McCall is one with years of experience in professional killing. This is light work for him. In fact, if you take notice, McCall does not blink in the entirety of this sequence. Just as I’ve praised Al Pacino time and time again for his emotional and expressive eyes and reaction to the severity of the events unfolding before him, Washington’s performance and lack of expression as McCall does what he does best is just as powerful in the context of the film.

Without saying anything, it tells the viewer they messed with the wrong man. When McCall takes the bus back to the store for the climax, knowing what he’s up against, he once again brandishes the deadened expression. It becomes McCall’s calling card, as if to say, “Ladies and gentlemen, it’s time.”

Even when McCall is officially unleashed, he doesn’t enjoy it. He just deems it as necessary. This evil needs to be stopped. Even after he talks to a bleeding-out Slavi, McCall says to himself, “I’m sorry”. In this moment, one has to think he was speaking to his wife, one of the very few people on Earth who knew about both sides of him. Knowing that he was retired, McCall probably retired from that life for her. Unfortunately, he was brought out of it and apologizes to her in a rather emotional moment because he was trying his hardest to leave that life behind for her. Funnily enough, we see right after how he’s soundly asleep that night once he cleans up. It’s the first time we see McCall at ease instead of going to that diner because of his inability to sleep. The rage kept him up. He was aware of the criminal acts going on around him, but he was fighting with himself internally to act on it up until this point. Finally doing something about it helped him release. There are so many compelling details like this that make this regular vigilante thriller so much more, and I love the character development McCall goes through within this well-paced story. It’s not just a movie where the good guy kills bad guys. Robert McCall is a three-dimensional character and has a lot more to offer audiences than what he may be given credit for. He’s so likable that he’s able to inspire you to become a better person while simultaneously satisfying your thirst for bloodlust for bad people, securing a grade of “10” on scales of both being a model citizen and a murderous vigilante. Only someone as cool as Denzel Washington could pull off both sides of the coin this effortlessly, with the viewer never questioning the morality of what he’s doing and seeing everything as justified.

For action fans, the fighting sequences and the kills are absolutely delectable. Most importantly, the choreography of the hand-to-hand combat fit well with Washington’s age. His quickness in his movements when in close quarters is well directed, and his use of his peripherals is a skill that can work no matter how old the character may look or act, which is why any viewer can suspend their disbelief throughout each movie, no matter how Washington or the character ages. He doesn’t attempt wild athletic moves that take you out of the movie. All of it is believable and visceral at that. The Equalizer also hangs its hat on the creativity of Robert McCall’s kills, his meticulous planning, and ingenious strategies with anything he has at his disposal. Because of this, the climax in the home improvement store is one to remember. They really maximize the potential of one cheap location and make it feel as big as John McClane fighting Hans Gruber at Nakatomi Plaza in Die Hard. Antoine Fuqua makes it a much bigger deal than it has any right in being, and every choice made by the director is that of an expert of his craft. Just the slow-motion walkout of McCall towards the end was worth the price of admission alone. Whether he’s torturing the paranoid Masters by handcuffing him to the steering wheel of his car and letting gas into it to choke him, as he sits outside of the car in a patio chair unflinching, or simply dropping bloody glasses on the table to imply he killed Teddy’s henchman in the bathroom, you start to surprise yourself how much you love the vengeful actions of Robert McCall because of his motivations. Actually, the latter was arguably the best scene of the movie, with McCall having one-up on Teddy and both of them knowing it with the “Stop me if you know this one” sequence. Teddy tries to keep a poker face like he has something up his sleeve, but the disgust in his face is evident as soon as McCall leaves that table, and boy, does it feel good. Everyone’s a bad dude until Denzel starts monologuing and starts showing you who’s the real boss:

“I’ve done some bad things in my life, Nicolai, things I’m not proud of. I promised someone that I loved very much that I would never go back to being that person. But for you, I’m gonna make an exception.”

After finishing things with “What do you see when you look at me?”, McCall walks out of that restaurant untouched when Teddy’s whole goal is to kill him. He even lends Teddy his phone number in case he wants to give up beforehand. That is the work of a bad motherfucker right there, and Denzel Washington is exactly that. You love seeing bad guys get their comeuppance, but when it’s shoved in their face before the violence happens, it’s incredibly satisfying. Teddy has never seen an adversary like McCall, but McCall has clearly faced someone like Teddy before, which is why the first time they cross paths at McCall’s apartment is such a great scene. McCall is smart enough to know Teddy is onto him, so he doesn’t lie too much, confirming he was there the night of Slavi’s death because Teddy wouldn’t be at his door if he wasn’t. Teddy thinks McCall is hiding something because he’s smart enough to recognize his intelligent responses (“Everything about him is wrong”), and he departs when asked who he works with by McCall. They both know they are up to something, but neither is afraid. However, McCall follows it up by telegraphing Teddy’s setup at the diner (“Is it just you, or we waiting for someone else?”) and going right across the street, right up to Teddy’s car, and taking a picture of his shocked face. Very rarely do you see such a ballsy move by the protagonist in a movie like this, but it’s just reaffirming how different McCall is. Again, he knows people and he knows Teddy is no good. He just wants to know a little more about him to get a frame of reference. You want to stand up and cheer when McCall beats up those two corrupt cops who are collecting money from these small businesses just trying to make a living, or when he shoves the badge in Masters face for disrespecting what the badge means.

These citizens are supposed to be protected by the likes of these people, but they sit there and take advantage of their status for their own motivations. Robert McCall, just like any other concerned citizen, sees this. He only involved himself because he has the ability to do something about it, which is why this vigilante is a hero, no matter what his actions are.

Bad guy movie actor Marton Csokas holds the distinction as being the only person who has fought Xander Cage, Robert McCall, and Abraham Lincoln in Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. He has quite the resume. Excluding the on-the-nose scene of his shirtless self brandishing tattoos of Satan and a bunch of skulls, the character is done quite well. Csokas carries his natural unlikability and threatening presence to playing a solid adversary for McCall to face in his return to killing. Csokas’s performance as Teddy doesn’t raise the bar for “bad guy in an action movie” standards, but he does exactly what is needed to make him seem like a threat without taking away from the hero and star of the movie. He’s given just enough scenes to not only tell the audience he’s a ruthless son of a bitch (the beating of “Little John” was one hell of a sequence), but even the others that are technically on his team start to see he’s not to be fucked with. What’s even better is how McCall responds to the threats of Teddy, who we later find out to be “Nicolai Itchenko”, a former Spetsnaz who ran a wing in the secret police but went private when the union fell. McCall is not scared whatsoever of his background or how much ground Teddy covers. He welcomes it because he knows Teddy is high up on the roster of villains that he needs to put an end to. He just wants to know who he’s up against when he meets with Susan. That’s all. When he’s given the news of Teddy’s real background and how McCall took out the East Coast hub of Vladimir Pushkin’s criminal empire, McCall’s face is that of indifference. Pushkin is described as being untouchable, but he’s not untouchable in McCall’s eyes. He is just another person on McCall’s list now. Simply put, it’s just really cool to see this type of unemotional and determined hero when faced with such a world-crushing danger. It’s a nice change of pace. Susan tries to console him, as she knows part of him died the day his wife died, but the part his wife loved the most is still there.

Susan is right. It is still there, as we’ve seen from McCall doing things like helping Ralphie’s family by cleaning up their store after half of it is blown up or getting back the cashier’s ring once she’s robbed at gunpoint, but that other part is what she’s forgetting about: the burning desire to hurt those who hurt others. He did all of this because he’s one of the very few who can do something about it. This is why he straight-faces Susan saying Teddy won’t stop until he kills McCall and anyone he cares about because this goes both ways. McCall will do the exact same to Teddy. Again, he didn’t come for help. He just came for permission.

Side note, the quickness when McCall takes the gun out of the criminal’s hand when in Pushkin’s factory before putting it on the guy had to be one of the most badass things I’ve ever seen in an action film. It’s right up there with McCall bludgeoning a motherfucker with a sledgehammer, cleaning it, and putting it back in the home improvement store to sell to some unsuspecting customer. I love it.

Antonie Fuqua’s reworking of The Equalizer is one hell of a franchise starter, and Denzel Washington honors the heart of the character while matching the popular style of violence for modern action movies that is needed to satisfy audiences worldwide. At the same time that he murders hundreds to protect the innocent, Washington’s performance will put a smile on your face and warm your heart at the same time as he helps others in need. Like a ghost in the night or an invisible man (like he’s seen reading in the final moments of the film), Robert McCall has now found his purpose in the later stages of his life. In his own way, his body, mind, and spirit are now all redirected into something positive, as crazy as it may seem. Just remember, when McCall offers you a chance to do the right thing, take it.

Fun Fact: Russell Crowe was originally attached to bringing The Equalizer to the big screen with Paul Haggis directing, but nothing came of it. Also considered for the role of Alina were Anna Kendrick, Nina Dobrev, and Kelly Macdonald.