The Equalizer - Il vendicatore

What holds this film back the most is it doesn't really do much to separate from all the other action flicks of a man taking the law in his own hands. The films plot isn't to bad its pretty simple and doesn't go anyway you wouldn't expect. The action scenes are solid bloody, gorey, and enjoyable to watch.

But what I would usually critique as being slightly above average goes above average thanks to Denzel Washington's great performance. It's no Man on Fire but it's satisfactory nonetheless.

It's a little to long considering the content of the film but it remains an enjoyable film, not great but not terrible.

IMDb: 7/10 Letterboxd: 3/5

Watched on Blu-ray.

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.

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.

In terms of an action movie I gave the equalizer a 7 but soon after felt the need to watch it again and then upped it to an 8. Why? We'll it's an action movie but yet there's no crazy car chases, there's no bombs or heavy big explosions every where. Really the only action scenes are the fight scenes and even they don't come that often. But when they do come they deliver. Denzel is as awesome as ever in these scenes and the creativity in these scenes are what sets it apart from every other action movie. The main character Robert McCall in an ex specialist of some sort, you don't know what at first but know that he's highly trained in something and is now working as an ordinary man working at Home Depot or home Mart as it is in the movie. He looks like just your every day man but can kill you with just about any everyday weapon. And he does this so calmly that big crazy car scenes and explosions would rake away from his character. A man that takes the bus to come kill a whole gang is pretty bad ass by any standard.

As always I don't want to give spoilers but I do recommend this as a good wholesome action movie.