"The Equalizer" reviewed

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Denzel Washington has something you just can’t learn, the ability to project a center of gravity, a certain steadiness and assuredness that works in tandem, or apart from, his megawatts smile and celebrity star handsome. He is the child of Sidney Poiter and  shares an unbrokable dignity… when the role demands. Consider this the anti-Flight,  his role as The equalizer  demands it on this follow up to Denzel’s  Oscar winning “Training Day”, both directed by Anton Fuqua.

Denzel is McCall, a former CIA assassin who decided to get out, faked his own death,  and now lives quietly performing a manual job at a Home Mart (better to have lots of gandy tools for the ending). An insomniac, he spends his nights in a diner, reading books, brewing his own tea and befriending a teenage hooker (Chloë Grace Moretz) who is being beaten by her violent Russian mob pimps.

Denzel kills the lot in spectacular fashion in under 50 seconds only to discover they represent the head of the Russian mafia who sends a very tough enforcer Teddy (Martin Scoskas) and mayhem ensues.

Loosely based on the excellent English TV show from the 70s , and opening with a nice $35M , this will be the first of A Denzel franchise. It is a smart mix of quiet and loud, violence and quiet, and as the movie progresses it becomes more and more of a fantasy but a cool fantasy. Denzel is somebody you would want on your side, he could kill off an army if he felt like it, and he dispatches his enemies with a no messing about efficiency. It is a very good movie, very powerful stuff and intensely violent with a hero easy to root for.

with less on its mind than it first appears to have, this is a batman without a cowel, the AARP has its first superhero.

Grade: B+