Robert McCall finds himself in southern Italy in a small coastal village that’s at the mercy of the mafia. McCall doing what he does best and attempts to protect the good people from the bad in another deadly encounter.
Denzel Washington as Robert McCall is such a great combination of actor and character. I loved the first movie and while the second instalment of the trilogy wasn’t quite as good as its predecessor it was still a very good and enjoyable film. I feel this will be one of those characters that will stand the test of time and always be associated when Denzel’s name is mentioned, very similar to Keanu Reeves and John Wick. Denzel Washington is in the latter stages of his career and it’s still so very impressive that he still has the energy, desire and professionalism to churn out great performance and great performance time and time again. Some actors end up dipping in their performance and movie quality as the years go by but Denzel Washington has remained consistently brilliant throughout his career.
First and foremost I loved the picturesque setting where the movie was set it gave a complete different vibe to the other two movies. The first 2 Equalizer’s were set in the States and had an air of sameness about them but the choice to switch up the setting to the quaint little village in Italy was a great move. The tiny, winding back streets gave off the impression of imminent danger being around any given corner at any given moment.
As always Denzel Washington was immense and I really liked the additional element of vulnerability to his other what bulletproof persona. In the previous instalments Robert McCall found himself in sticky situations but you never really felt like he would lose and that the evil entity he was facing would triumph. However, in Equalizer 3 there were moments, especially early on, where you were made to think McCall’s time was up and death was nearby. He was supported by a cast made up of almost all Italian actors that I had never seen before and for the most part they all did a good job and helped with genuineness of the film and its setting rather than getting a bunch of American actors to play Italian.
Besides the plethora of good moments in the movie there were some minor negatives. The main one being how cliche and overly stereotypical the mafia guys were, particularly the head of the family, Vincent Quaranta, played by Andrea Scarduzio. He was pretty much every classic mafia cliche rolled into one and I felt that his character could’ve been modernised and made to be different to the norm. Another slight negative was the pacing of the movie was incredibly slow to begin with before the fireworks all came at once right at the end. I felt that in previous Equalizer movies the action sequences were better spread out as Robert McCall ventured on his quest for vengeance however in the third movie it was a very slow build up and the action parts seemed particularly rushed.
Overall, Equalizer 3 was a good movie that hopefully acts a nice send off to the Robert McCall character. The trilogy did get slightly worse as the movies went on but all were still good in their own right and I hope the the tagline for the film rings true “The Final Chapter” as I’d hate for more and more Equalizer movies to be released only for them to turn into drivel.
7/10
Movie Ramblings 