Le justicier

Denzel Washington is just great and The Equalizer belongs like the John Wick (Keanu Reeves) and Taken (Liam Neeson) movies to the new masterclass of revenge/vigilante movies. The Equalizer is a true to the heart successor of our former (or still) heroes of long gone times like Mr. Eastwood and Mr. Bronson: the king is dead, long live the king, so to say.

The Equalizer is great stuff - if you like your action spiced up with a good shot of violence.

For years now I've had people tell me I have to watch this and for whatever reason I've kept putting it off. Today I apologise, because this is a fantastic film and I really enjoyed it.

What struck me straight away was that first 20 mins or so. I'm sold. It tells us the characters you can see where it's heading and it fished me in quickly. From then on it was just an insane and tense ride. What was great was that every scene had a purpose, there was no messing about, no filler scenes with no point. Everything meant something and that's a rarity in this day and age. The suspense by the way, wow. Had me on strings the entire time, never knew which was it was heading.

I really enjoyed the characters as well. Denzel wasn't just this stereotypical action guy that went round shooting people. There was so more more to him, more complexity if you will and with that there was more to delve into. You definitely get a John Wick vibe to this movie and with the main character, so if you like that. You'll like this.

Just a quick mention, I would have liked to have seen Elena/Teri more, I felt she had a lot of depth that could have been explored. I think my only I guess negative was that the villains "evilness" wasn't explained. Or explained well. Not sure if I missed it, but I didn't truly get why he was so "evil".

But yeah, overall I really enjoyed my time watching this and I'll be jumping on the Equaliser 2 asap. Definitely recommend if you like an action. A very strong 8/10 from me today.

An intense and towering performance from Denzel Washington as one of cinema's best-acted action heroes is what makes THE EQUALIZER stand out from the crowd, although as a film it's also a very decent thriller. It's supposedly a big screen version of the '80s TV series with Edward Woodward, although think of it as your usual vigilante movie and you'll be closer.

Let's be honest here: the plotting in THE EQUALIZER is nothing special, and the Russian mob make for clichéd villains. It's the execution where this film excels. It's not an action filled movie, but when the action hits it's hard and heavy, not shying away from crowd-pleasing violence meted out to the villains. The extended set-piece ending might be described as 'DIE HARD in B&Q' and loses the realism a little but, but until that point this is tough and gritty film-making.

Aside from the excellent Washington, we get a fine bad guy performance from Martin Csokas, equally intense and the finest I've seen from him, and Chloe Grace Moretz is wisely kept off-screen for most of the running time, which I was fine with. The final shout-out goes to director Antoine Fuqua, whose effortless style makes this a graceful and thoroughly entertaining viewing experience.

So I just finished watching Equalizer (EQ1) again, so I can watch Equalizer 2 (EQ2) for the comparison.

It's too bad both films had the same director and writers, as they have a bad habit of dragging out the writing and the scenes. Both films at just over 2 hours is just way too long, especially in the simplistic singular plot or EQ1. However, that plot still worked, and mainly because of the entire casts especially Denzel Washington's performance(s). EQ2 certainly had better pacing and a more suspenseful plot - albeit predictable, however it had many plot issues and holes as well as some scenes that needed to be edited down. The new supporting cast was not as strong either.

Which did I enjoy better? Probably EQ1 by a small margin, but they both got an 8/10 from me, as they each had their merits and issues. Nevertheless still enjoyable. I hope if they come out with a EQ3, they speed up the pacing within the writing and directing.

Cliched and done to death formula! But still fun to watch on a night when you don't want to be bothered with something cerebral. Denzel Washington is good as ever & the Russian Mafia doesn't stand a chance in hell anyway! Am gonna hit the sequel next folks...