Review of The Equalizer (2014) by Kermitlaphroaig — 09 Oct 2014

An excellent thriller in the retired-spy-becomes-vigilante genre, AKA Taken. Based on the 1980s TV show with the same theme, except in the TV show the spy is a stuck up old British guy and in the movie it's an old black guy who works at Home Depot and hangs out with bums. That is sort of the most unbelievable part of the movie, that this dumpy old bald fart that looks like somebody's dad, could be so agile with Spiderman reflexes.

If you suspend your disbelief that far, the movie is actually really entertaining because its got that Max Paine, bullet time, stop action effect. The hero is sort of this invincible Flash. Also, the bad guys are a bunch of low life Russian mobster illegal alien pimps, the kind of villain you love to see getting whacked. Luckily, there are goodly supply of them to be terminated. The head villain is an ex-Spetsnatz contract killer psychopath who looks and talks like Kevin Spacey and is oddly named "Teddy". Basically it's the return of Kaiser Soze.

The most annoying thing about the film is all the time spent on "character buildup" in which the Equalizer does community service trying to help his loser buddies at Home Depot. Super spy donates charity time to pathetic wannabe security guard. Its just incredibly stupid United Way stuff that just has you taking bathroom breaks until the killing starts again.

Another oddity of the film is director Fuqua's obsessive cinematography. You always know you are in trouble when the director starts taking control of the camera. There are more shots of Denzel Washington's eyeball than you will ever want to see in your lifetime. You will also get electron microscope closeups of other obscure parts of his anatomy such as his septum, his thenar, etc. In retrospect the overkill on the art shots is not too bad, but it definitely makes the film more "interesting" at a certain level.

Part of the fun of the movie is The Equalizer getting stuck in situations no ordinary person could possibly survive, so you are like, "I wonder how he is getting out of this one" and he always has these cool MacGiver solutions to the situation.

Overall, a pretty entertaining film.