More than Equal
Director Antoine Fuqua and Denzel Washington wrap up their reboot trilogy just as it’s getting really good.
The Equalizer 3
Director: Antoine Fuqua • Writer: Richard Wenk, based on the television series
Starring: Denzel Washington, Dakota Fanning, Gaia Scodellaro, Remo Girone, Eugenio Mastrandrea, Andrea Scarduzio, Andrea Dodero, David Denman
USA • 1hr 43mins
Opens Hong Kong August 31 • IIB
Grade: B+
It is a rare thing indeed when the third film in a trilogy is the best of the lot, so The Equalizer 3 shouldn’t be as good as it is. Director Antoine Fuqua must be commended for finding a way – and having the cojones – to energise an ageing property and go out with a bang as well as slow it down just enough to give its hero a meaningful send-off. Of course it helps that his hero, Robert McCall, is played by the stupidly, eternally cool Denzel Washington.
What appears to be the final entry in the reboot based on the 1985 Edward Woodward CBS television series (which also has a current Queen Latifah-led iteration with frequently terrible green screen) was never a pussy cat, but Fuqua has turned up the brutality level with each chapter, and here he goes hard on creative kills and righteous retribution. And while it helps that he has Washington, Fuqua is one of the actor’s go-to directors (Crimson Tide director Tony Scott and Glory’s Edward Zwick are others), unsurprising since Fuqua directed him straight into his first best actor Oscar in Training Day. He trusts Fuqua and series writer Richard Wenk enough to let them trim down the whup ass and give everyone time to ease into life in tiny Altamonte along with McCall, and similar to Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, let McCall be a little long in the tooth, to be injured, and ready to hang it up and retire to southern Italy.
You ’bout to get equalised
When we last left former marine and DIA operative Robert McCall, he was chilling at home in Boston having avenged the murder of his old DIA handler, probably still working as an Uber driver and undercover as The Equalizer. We pick up with him at a Sicilian winery, whose shady boss (Bruno Bilotta) is the mastermind of a whole bunch of dirty deeds, from drug smuggling to cyber crime. Taking a bullet while equalising a bitch, he’s plucked off the road outside Naples and patched up by tiny Altamonte’s only doctor, Enzo (Remo Girone). Before you can say “cosa nostra,” McCall is seeing how the town lives under the thumb of a nasty local gang led by Marco (Andrea Dodero), doing the bidding of his older brother Vincent (Andrea Scarduzio), who wants to take over and turn the hamlet into a hub of luxury hotels and casinos.
Of course, Vincent is connected to the Sicilian winery in a roundabout way, which McCall tips off CIA financial crimes agent Emma Collins (Washington’s now adult Man of Fire co-star Dakota Fanning) about. Why her? You’ll see, in some fast and loose retconning. While Collins is looking into the camorra business, McCall is making friends with local carabiniere Gio (Eugenio Mastrandrea), the one who picked him up on the highway, the piazza café owner Aminah (Gaia Scodellaro), and the friendly fishmonger Angelo (Daniele Perrone). For the record, cop or robber, these people all look like they stepped out of an Armani catalogue; no one has ever worn a beat down quite as well as Mastrandrea. But Collins’ wheels of justice turn to slowly for McCall, who’s been embraced as a local and decides Altamonte’s threats need to be equalised.
Fuqua can sometimes let his taste for stylistic flourish get the better of him (he cut his teeth in music video), but the combination of spectacular locations and Washington’s effortless command of the screen compel him to rein it in this time, and let heavily awarded DOP Robert Richardson (Air, JFK, Kill Bill) toggle between the warm, earthy aesthetics of the village – the first two films were icy and urban – and the deep blacks of the same villages stony crevices and corners. Are there some questionable tropes? Sure, but this is also efficient, no-nonsense action entertainment with a little more (welcome) soul than expected.
If you’re not already on board with this version of The Equalizer’s brand of vigilante justice – it’s much more high stakes than either of the TV series – this isn’t going to win you over. If you’re curious, but never got around to either of the previous entries, this is a good place to start. It’s self-contained enough to stand alone as an independent story, but fans of the trilogy are going to get satisfying closure. Washington is a great actor (the proof is in Spike Lee’s Malcolm X or the Coen Brothers The Tragedy of Macbeth) but is there really anything better than watching him take apart bad guys? No. There is not. — DEK
*The Equalizer 3 was reviewed during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labour of the writers and actors currently on strike, it wouldn't exist.