The Equalizer

Taken + Man On Fire x 2 and you get The Equalizer!! Denzel Washington is in more form than ever and gets my personal Oscar, for Best Actor in an Action Movie (even if he just sits on the toilet for the whole movie, he's got balls). His likability, looks, charisma, skill, ingenuity, focus, military skills and deadly destruction will haunt you throughout the film. What is there to praise here? The excellent cinematography and slow motion effects during the action scenes that strongly rival Korean action movies (the best explosion ever filmed in a movie). A perfect script and dialogues, for the whole film we have the opportunity to hear a plethora of wisecracks and morsels of wisdom, in the next screening I will watch with pencil and paper. The villain, the main bad ass, is a properly smart, cold, menacing and uncompromising mafia boss, he was no doubt a key factor in the success of the film. The action is classy and so distinct you can almost reach out and touch it. The half hour finale was bloodier than any horror film, those who like traps and blood will come into their own as I did. More people died in this film than the number of films I watched in 2014 and there were no few!!! A fully Intelligent, dark and violent revenge ride like there hasn't been in a long time. Whoever humiliates this film flies will be unfriended without mercy! Top 3 movie of the year. (10/09/2014)

A hardcore Robin Hood for the 21st century, who manages to use his deep knowledge of the hobby market to the hilt in his battle with the biggest scumbag. It's not that The Equalizer isn't entertaining or bloody enough, it's more that at times it oozes with overblown and primitively cheesy action "for effect". The level of emotional heroism here is really over the top, and much more than an action thriller it feels at times like a slightly failed comic book adaptation. A weaker 3 stars. (11/14/2019)

The Equalizer with Denzel Washington could be pretty much compared to Shooter with Mark Wahlberg, which was also shot by Fuqua, years ago. As far as the action goes, the scenes are very well-done, but the movie has a couple of mediocre, uninteresting and useless moments; it could’ve been 30 minutes shorter and I wouldn’t mind at all. (06/15/2015)

Slower but all the more focused, subtly escalating and with a perfect performance by the main villain. Washington is approaching the position of an A-list Seagal and soon we’ll see a halo lighting up over his head. I was delighted with the character balance between him and Csokas, the dialogue, Bill Pullman’s small role, more blood than we are used to in Washington movies, and the closing music by Moby. Fuqua is back! (10/14/2014)

Well... no. I can appreciate an action flick with higher formal ambitions from time to time, but I also demand that its contents not strongly irritate me, which here unfortunately wasn’t the case. Equalizer looks good, the performances are fine and the sound design is great, but I found it boring and irritating most of the time. Is it exaggerated? Of course, but it doesn’t matter. Is it narratively dumb and disjointed? Yes, unfortunately very much so. And yet it looks so, so good :/ 60% (02/22/2015)