The Equalizer movie review

Article by Gabe Zia

Lazy Film Critic reviews....

The Equalizer is a movie starring Denzel Washington, Chloe Moretz, Melissa Leo, Bill Pullman, and Martin Csokas. It's directed by Anton Fuqua, who's previous work includes Olympus has Fallen, and Training Day. It follows this loner guy played by Denzel Washington who seems like this quiet dude, until some seriously bad stuff starts happening to people around him, and he has to fix their lives (I refuse to make an Equalizer pun).

Olympus has Fallen succeeded (to me) for one main reason, which was how well the action was done. The same goes for The Equalizer. The action in this film is quick and fast paced, as well as gritty and violent, making for some awesome scenes. There's also a lot of moments with improvised weapons, which make for some really cool moments, as well as creative action scenes.

Denzel Washington is one of those actors who, even if the film is garbage, it's pretty much a guarantee he'll do a good job in it. And he's good in The Equalizer, he's really intense, he's a total badass when he needs to be, and other times he's plays a character who is both interesting, and compelling. However, the rest of the cast don't do as good of a job. The whole movie is focused on the Russian mob, which leads to a villain who's just kind of evil for the sake of being evil. There's no way about it, the character is just a jerk, with no other identity besides that. Coming from the guy who made Training Day, which had one of the best movie villains ever, this comes to me as kind of a surprise.

One thing I've mentioned a few times in recent weeks is pacing, but unlike Gone Girl and A Most Wanted Man, this film suffers for its pacing. There are intense action scenes, and intense scenes in general, however the film takes a while to build up to those intense moments, and there's long breaks between these action scenes. They're not too bad, because the film shows that the scenes aren't entirely unnecessary, they're still kinda slow.

Final Rating
The Equalizer is a fun action movie with some intense moments, despite it being a little boring at times. Apparently, Nicholas Winding Refn (director of Drive) was the original director for this movie, and while that version would have probably been a better film, it may not have been as entertaining as the one we got. I'd say if you're out at the theater, you can't really go wrong with this.

The Equalizer: 3.7/5