The late, charismatic English actor Edward Woodward (Breaker Morant) was nominated for an Emmy Award from 1985-1989 for his role as Robert McCall, a retired special ops intelligence officer turned vigilante-do-gooder, in the television series the Equalizer. Now, at 59, roughly the same age as Woodward when he portrayed McCall, the two-time Academy Award winning American actor Denzel Washington (Glory, Training Day) takes on the role in Antoine Fuqua’s (Olympus has Fallen, Training Day) feature film, The Equalizer.
In The Equalizer, we do not realise until McCall’s second intervention, when he helps a co-worker whose family business has been targeted, that this mild-manner ordinary-Joe is a highly skilled serial vigilante. It all begins rather enigmatically with a single, middle-aged man getting up and leaving for his ordinary job at a Home Depot hardware store. His modest, Spartan flat reveals little about the inhabitant except his penchant for order. Nothing seems to disturb the calm of this man who has no ego and modestly goes about his business. But as McCall greets his colleagues at work, we are already starting to wonder what his real business is.
Those who cannot guess from the title that the eponymous Equalizer makes the battle between victim and evil perpetrator more equal, do not have long to wait to find the answer to this question. A man who needs as little sleep as he does trendy meals in Boston’s riverside eateries, Bob McCall frequents a local all-night diner where he nurses a non-alcoholic drink, armed only with a classic novel.
He reveals to an inquisitive Russian hooker and aspiring songwriter named Teri (Chloë Grace Moretz) that he was married and is working his way through a list of 100 great books. Just last week in A Walk Among the Tombstones, Liam Neeson played a former NYPD cop who meets an inquisitive young boy in a library. Clearly, we like our physical heroes to have an intellectual dimension.
One night, Bob witnesses Teri’s brutal treatment in the hands of the Russian gangsters who control her. Teri, who is about 17, could be Bob’s daughter or grand-daughter, and indeed, Washington, who has not honed his physique over the years like Stallone, resembles a friendly grandfather who would sooner call the cops than infiltrate a mob single-handedly. But with the help of a stunt double, paternal, if not professional instinct calls Bob McCall out of early retirement.
We have seen what ensues so many times before that even Fuqua (who directed Washington on Training Day) and writer Richard Wenk cannot come up with enough new ways for McCall to get his man. In fact, it is only via the increasingly surprised reactions of the psychopathic gangster Teddy (Marton Csokas), that we are reminded of the enormity of McCall’s task. Teddy is more impressed than we are at McCall’s almost superhuman powers.
Unless The Equalizer is intended as a pilot for a feature film series, such as Spider Man, Death Wish or Jack Reacher, all of which it resembles, it is an riksy choice for a feature film. The whole idea of the concept is to see what new helpless victim attracts the attention of our pop-up hero and the inventive ways in which McCall will help them. In a feature film, you can manage one or two victims maximum, and, at over 2 hours, there is a lot of time for the inevitably predictable action to unfold.
In Man on Fire, Denzel Washington played a former CIA agent hell-bent on revenge when another up-and-coming teen actress (Dakota Fanning) is brutalised by killers. If Tony Scott’s action thriller was over the top and seemed to revel in our hero’s sadistic killings, there is another problem here. McCall’s talents for quick thinking and overcoming his enemies without working up a sweat are indeed over the top.
But he goes about them in the same way in which he might sort out the inventory back at the hardware store. Fuqua is less interested in staging the action than in the heroism of the saintly middle-aged man. The trouble is that we begin to tire of this McCall at around the same time we tire of the repetitive action.
Joyce Glasser – MT film reviews
