8/10

Denzel Washington plays Robert Mccall, a former Special Ops soldier who lives a simple life in Boston. Everything changes one night when a friend of his (Chloe Moretz) is assaulted and put in the hospital by her russian pimp employers. Mccall decides that it’s time to open up some of his past demons to get revenge on those who do harm to others. The Equalizer kind of felt like a violent rated R superhero film at times with Washington playing his most physical role to date. What the film lacks in believability, it more than makes up for in stylish violence reminiscent of a Sin City film. The violence and fighting scenes are among the best i have seen in 2014, and are sure to satisfy any action buff looking for the genre’s best. What i really loved about this film however is that it takes it’s time building the tension. For anyone who lacks patience in a script and wants results fast, this isn’t the movie for you. It clocks in at 2 hours and 8 minutes, but it never felt like it lagged. Most of that is due to the incredible tension created between Mccall and the Russian mob boss, Teddy (Martin Csoskas). Csokas is menacing, and never fully shows his anger to his enemies. He likes to torture to always get the answers that he seeks. Between a scene at Mccall’s apartment and a scene with the two males sitting down in a restaurant, the tension was highly stacked for a showdown of epic proportions, and i can gladly say that it didn’t disappoint. The finale takes place with the whole russian mob hunting down Mccall in his place of business, a Home Depot esque rip off of a home and gardening business. Thank God for Sony Pictures that they had time to pimp their laptop products shamelessly like they do in other Sony Pictures movies, but they didn’t have enough of a budget to represent the Home Depot name. It’s a pointless nitpick, but i always have an inside joke with the people i talk movies to about how Sony makes sure to always get their products in front of the camera. The movie has an all around great cast besides Washington and Csoskas. Chloe Moretz, the great David Harbour, Melissa Leo, and even Bill Pullman all make appearances with some of them working and some of them not. In fact, one of my only lone problems with the film was the screen time of Chloe Moretz. She appears during the opening 15 minutes quite frequently and then we don’t see her again till the end of the film. Because of that time lapse in between, i feel like she was just too good of an actress to play this role, and they could’ve gotten anyone to fill it. I was personally satisfied when Sony hired Antoine Fiqua to direct this thriller. For those of you who don’t know, Fiqua directed Denzel in his Oscar winning role as detective Alonzo Harris. In that film, Washington took a role on that he made his own by smart one liners and harrowing realism to the sides of the streets that most people aren’t familiar with. The Equalizer is very similar in that regards to me. He plays a man we can all relate to, but we will fight our hardest when we are protecting the people we care about. Fiqua directs that very well, and his films serve as a social commentary for the events going on in the ghettos that the news stations are afraid to show us. I definitely recommend this film not only to action fans, but to everyone in general. If you love Denzel, you cannot afford to miss out on this film. This is one of those rare occasions where i justify a full price showing even if only for the heart pounding sound editing coming from hundreds of shots being fired. The Equalizer is a game of revenge, and even at the age of 59 years old, he shows that he is still one of the best that Hollywood has to offer.