The Equalizer 3

Since giving up his life as a government assassin, Robert McCall now finds solace in serving up justice on the behalf of the oppressed. After a bit of justice-serving goes sideways in Southern Italy, leaving him injured and at the mercy of some friendly locals, he soon discovers that his new friends are being menaced by some local crime bosses, and before you know it, Robert McCall is equalizing the shit out of the mafia.

Pro-tip: If you should ever come home to your fortress, and your army of armed thugs are all really, really… really dead. Not only that, but out of all the dead bodies inside of your fortress—and it’s a lot of dead bodies—you quickly realize that there isn’t single dead body in the entire place that isn’t a person you know. It’s just your people, your heavily armed army of thugs… should this ever happen to you, then you really should just turn around and leave.

Don’t go inside.

But the main villain of this film’s Cold Opening does go inside, following a trail of corpses like bread crumbs to one man, sitting and enjoying a nice white wine.

And that’s how we’re re-introduced to everybody’s favorite uncle-who-doesn’t-take-any-shit, Denzel Washington as Robert McCall, known as The Equalizer. After that, we’re quickly reminded of the fact that if there’s one thing the Equalizer can’t stand, it’s a bad guy with an un-kicked ass.

Every episode of the Incredible Hulk tv show was the same.

Dr. David Banner would hitchhike into some small town somewhere, usually just outside of L.A., and he would immediately meet an oh-so-precocious child, and their nice and pretty single mom, who works as a waitress in the diner where Dr. Banner is washing some dishes for some quick road cash. Soon enough, some local thugs would show up and menace the waitress, her kid, and the nice old people who own the diner, and Dr. Banner would step in and say “Hey. Stop it.” But instead of stopping, the thugs would push him and laugh, and they’d tell him that Bruce is too gay of a name, so that’s why the tv execs changed it to David for the show, and at that point, Dr. Banner would say his classic line, advising them that it was probably best that they not upset him, because he can be pretty unpleasant when he’s upset, but once again… just like every time, the thugs don’t listen, and end up reaping what they’ve sown.

Why wouldn’t they ever listen?

Anyway, this is what Equalizer 3 is about.

Based on the ‘80s TV series of the same name that starred Edward Woodward as a former covert operative turned guardian angel for helpless victims, a character who never had a classic line, like “You’ve just been equalized!” or something like that, this franchise is very much Dad-fiction. They’re all basically a series of moments where old ass Uncle Denzel tells some thugs that they better not make him stand up, but they don’t listen, forcing him to show some disrespectful young men a little bit of the old what-for, often taking out a half dozen guys in a small room without even breaking a sweat, and certainly not while twisting his ankle or twinging his back. It’s good stuff, and as a result, I enjoyed the first Equalizer, and I honestly loved the second one.

This time out, they really… let me stress this… they REALLY amped up how obviously dangerously unhinged Robert McCall is, and how oh-so incredibly fucked you are if he should decide that you deserve to be punished for your transgressions. So much so, you almost feel bad for the mafia guys in this film. Yes, they’re cartoonishly evil, all swaggering Italians with their gold chains and shirts that are too unbuttoned, acting with impunity all over town, and really just enjoying being jerks… but these dumb assholes have no idea that the Hulk has recently hitchhiked into town, and he is an absolute nutball murder junkie, and unfortunately for them, despite his warnings, they have proceeded to make him angry…

All that sounds great, right?

But it’s not. It’s not a good film. It’s oddly paced and top heavy. It’s overly gory, but not in a fun way. It’s obvious and bombastic, like… more than usual. Plus, I don’t think they intended to make Denzel seem like such an absolute lunatic spree-killer with a hair-trigger, ready to go off should anyone cross his personal line of justice… but they did. Denzel is great, of course. He takes this role seriously, and is obviously having a good time doing it, but like I said, he seems to be play this role in a way that doesn’t make him seem like a hero, despite what the script seems to think. Dakota Fanning is always good. She is teaming up with both Director Antoine Fuqua and Denzel once again, after Man  On Fire, a film I will forever be mad at because it didn’t end with a third and final bomb-up-the-butt, turning the previous two bombs-up-the-butts into unfired Chekhov’s Guns, which bothers me so much… but I digress. Anyway, this time Dakota is playing Julia Stiles from the Bourne Identity, except her character is even more of an unnecessary addition to the story than Julia Stiles was in the first Bourne.

All in all, the film is just not good.

The first Equalizer was just okay. The second Equalizer movie was a surprisingly good time. The third Equalizer movie was ridiculously bad.

I guess it all equaled out in the end…

(Classic line)