A dish best served old
Ticket Stubs #7: The Equalizer 3, starring Denzel Washington, is not your run-of-the-mill revenge thriller.
Ticket Stubs is a movie column reviewing new and not-so-new releases, Hollywood classics, nostalgic trash, and more obscure cinematic fare. This is Ticket Stubs #7.
The Equalizer 3
Antoine Fuqua, 2023
It’s been so long since the first Equalizer movie that I’d forgotten what Denzel Washington is supposed to be balancing out.
The Equalizer 3, released in theatres in August but now available on streaming, doesn’t take long to reacquaint us with Robert McCall’s mission: using his skills as a former Marine and DIA agent to mete out vigilante justice to sundry wrong’uns who exploit and oppress vulnerable Good Folks just going about their lives. In this, the character stands apart from the greater number of cinematic vigilantes, who are set on their extra-legal crusades for justice by a personal violation.
Paul Kersey of Death Wish (Michael Winner, 1974) snaps after his wife is murdered and his daughter attacked; Buford Pusser of Walking Tall (Phil Karlson, 1973) is beaten up but gets no help from corrupt law enforcement; and there would be no John Wick (Chad Stahelski, 2014) series if those Russian thugs hadn’t killed the titular hero’s beagle puppy. Harry Callahan of Dirty Harry (Don Siegel, 1971) had no background of victimisation but his vigilanteism is an outgrowth of his role as a police inspector. With no triggering event and no sworn duty, McCall seems to do it just ‘cause he’s a swell guy.
This time he’s in Amalfi, trying to get a decent cup of tea in the land of espresso, when he gets into a disagreement with the local mafia. They think they should continue to be alive; he disagrees. The Camorra are importing amped-up Syrian speed through a Sicilian vineyard and pumping the proceeds into their plan to turn sleepy, idyllic Altamonte into a playground for the rich and famous. The picture opens with McCall turning the vineyard a deep red and suffice to say it’s not by uncorking a decent shiraz. McCall isn’t there to teach the mafia to Just Say No; he’s looking to recover money stolen from a union pension fund in a cyber-robbery.
Unfortunately for him, one of the gangsters he offs has a young son with a rifle who plants one in McCall’s back. Yes, a trained killer with near supernatural powers of speed, perception and spatial awareness is caught unawares by a jittery kid who drops his gun after getting off a single shot. McCall is found by a carabiniere who takes him to a local doctor, neither of whom report their discovery of a shooting victim and instead trust their instincts that he’s an alright dude.
McCall’s recuperation involves entire scenes of climbing steps with a cane, after which he’s fighting fit again and ready to resume his modern-day Zorro routine. This is perfect timing since the Camorra are turning the screws on locals who refuse to sell up to make way for a luxury hotel resort. Reprisals include firebombing a fishmongers and hanging an elderly man in a wheelchair from a balcony. Finally, YIMBYism gets militant.
McCall, who has developed a soft spot for Altamonte, brutally dispatches sadist enforcer Marco Quaranta (Andrea Dodero) after he targets Gio Bonucci (Eugenio Mastrandrea), the gendarme who rescued him in the beginning. Heartened by this, the locals start to stand up to the Camorra, even whipping out smartphones to video their illicit activities. (If exposing their crimes on TikTok doesn’t put a stop to the mafia, there are probably some old tweets they can get cancelled for.)
Bumping off Marco sends his brother Vincent (Andrea Scarduzio) on a quest for vengeance and McCall also has to deal with CIA agent Emma Collins (Dakota Fanning), on his tail after he called in a tip about the Syrian speed imports. Collins doesn’t do a whole lot and it seems a shame to have brought in an actress of Fanning’s calibre only to underuse her. There’s a revelation at the end that elevates the character’s significance but this only underscores how underwritten she is.
Needless to say, McCall makes light work of Vincent and his goons and although there is a very shallow attempt at symbolism, intercutting between his deadly ministrations and scenes of a Catholic feast day processional through the picturesque town, it’s nothing more than routine action-movie bloodletting.
The picture is gorier than the first movie and the camera probably lingers on visceral affairs a little longer and a little closer than is necessary. This has troubled some critics. Robert Daniels at RogerEbert.com sees in this ‘stomach-churning violence’ an indication of ‘where this once enjoyable nuts-and-bolts action franchise has gone wrong’, but that’s getting too worked up about mindless popcorn fun.
The Equalizer 3 is not a movie to get worked up about. It’s there to be watched, enjoyed in the moment, then forgotten about half an hour after the credits roll. That’s not a criticism. At a time when even the James Bond series can’t content itself with entertaining us, and needs to be educating us about Important Issues, there’s a lot to be said for a by-the-numbers glockbuster that’s about nothing more socially redeeming than the good guy shooting the bad guys.
Sure, I’d rather McCall’s character was better developed — or developed at all — and it would be grittier if the downtrodden locals were less saintly and more morally compromised (the mafia thrives by corrupting everyone around them), but this is not a gritty character study, it’s an action movie. Antoine Fuqua is a gifted director of kinetics and if he gets carried away with the body contact and the bloodspatter, he is at least restrained enough to know that his audience isn’t interested in a relevant movie.
Denzel Washington is getting on and is a little less spry in this one, but Charles Bronson was still making Death Wish movies into his seventies. That, plus the decent box office The Equalizer 3 has done, could open the door to another instalment with Washington involved in some capacity. Fanning’s character isn’t given enough to do here but her inclusion might have been intended to set her up as McCall’s successor in virtuous baddie-bashing. Her backstory, revealed in the movie’s dying moments, would place her closer to the conventional Hollywood vigilante, forever avenging a past injustice.
Streaming now on Amazon Prime Video, Google Play, and Apple TV.