In reality, though, that literary coda just slaps a bow tie on a pit bull: It may class him up a bit, but at heart he's still a lean, mean junkyard dog.īill Newcott is a writer, editor and movie critic for AARP Media.Although he shares a character name and skill set with his TV predecessor, Washington’s Robert McCall is otherwise, literally and figuratively, an Equalizer of a different color: a childless widower (instead of a divorcee with an estranged son) who takes public transit (rather than tooling around in a sleek black Jaguar) and maintains his anonymity by working as a sales associate at a Home Depot-type superstore (in lieu of advertising his special services in the classified ads). Even if you haven't read that experimental manifesto since high school, the image of its distinctive blue cover will remind you of the song the book's unnamed narrator constantly listens to: Louis Armstrong's "(What Did I Do to Be So) Black and Blue."įor a fleeting moment you wonder if The Equalizer might actually be about something. That's Hollywood shorthand for "Yes, he's a killing machine, but he's a sensitive killing machine." But it also enables director Fuqua, in a last-minute bid for respectability, to place in McCall's hands a copy of Ralph Ellison's landmark 1952 social novel, Invisible Man. In his quieter moments, McCall is a voracious reader. Propane tanks, barbed wire, gravel, sprinkler systems - and, yes, that old standby the nail gun - let McCall bring new meaning to the words "Do it yourself." The setting enables our resourceful hero to avail himself of all manner of home-improvement products in the creation of mayhem. That final shoot-out with the evil henchman comes right when we expect it will, and where: at McCall's big-box store. ( Bill Pullman and Melissa Leo please, God, can they play larger roles in the presumed sequel?) He also makes a pit stop at the estate of a couple of old friends from the Agency. (Sorry, multinational CEOs and Wall Street stockbrokers!)ĭuring the long chase, McCall eludes assassins in his apartment, outruns their bullets on the street and cheekily blows the kingpin's oil tanker to smithereens in Boston Harbor - occasioning the inevitable slo-mo scene in which Denzel coolly walks away as the gates of hell explode behind him. This should allow Germans, white South Africans and assorted Middle Easterners to breathe easier for a while. Worth noting: Both The Equalizer and The Drop, opening within a week of each other, enlist Eastern Europeans as their bloodlusting villains, thus cementing the region as Hollywood's current go-to source of malefactors. But McCall also runs afoul of an Eastern European crime syndicate. In the process he slaughters a roomful of thugs using his bare hands, the gangsters' own gats and a conveniently murderous corkscrew. One night the Equalizer comes to the aid of a young prostitute ( Chloë Grace Moretz) who's been roughed up by her pimp. This update keeps McCall's name and mysterious background but moves the action from Manhattan to Boston.īy day, McCall toils in a hardware store reminiscent of Home Depot by night he tracks down evildoers and either a) persuades them to make restitution to the people they've wronged or b) beats them with a rubber mallet and then persuades them to make restitution to the people they've wronged. Many of us hold fond memories of the 1980s TV series The Equalizer, starring Edward Woodward as Robert McCall, a former government agent who uses his skills to help ordinary people overcome threats from the rich, the powerful and the mean. In standing up for the little guy in “The Equalizer,” Denzel Washington, with rubber mallet and more, coolly takes on the bad guys.
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