Denzel Washington has to be the most watchable actor of our time. Him and Tom Hanks are able to do whatever the hell they want whenever the hell they want. What's great about those two is they could potentially do a film a year and receive Oscar nominations each year (and probably win a good number of them). Yet, they still choose to do roles that make them happy. Hanks, lately, has gone the more Oscar route, but Washington is still having fun. He is a phenomenal actor who could do any role no matter the difficulty. Denzel could've thrown on a dress, a fat suit, and a wig and been the entire cast of The Help and won everything. Denzel could've been the slave in 12 Years A Slave as well as Michael Fassbender's role and won everything. He could be doing period pieces or Oscar bait movies... yet even while pushing 60, he's still churning out action movies like 2 Guns, Safe House, Unstoppable, The Book of Eli, The Taking of Pelham 1, 2, 3, Deja Vu, Inside Man, Man on Fire, John Q, etc. only stopping briefly to churn out a rare Training Day or The Hurricane or Antoine Fisher or Flight. He appears to be having a great time in each of these movies, so it makes sense that Denzel will only act in movies where he can tell by the script it is going to be a pleasant experience.
Now, let's break down The Equalizer a bit. First off, it's based off a TV show from the 70s. It has a bit of a superhero quality to it in that this guy essentially becomes a vigilante helping people simply because it's the "right thing to do." As a normal human being, you or I would not see the any of the crimes that just happen to occur near Denzel. Yet, he deals with a robbery, corrupt cops, the Russian mafia, a woman-beating and he feels it is his duty to reconcile these problems and set things right. Much like a superhero movie, the amount of crime witnessed here is an absurd amount. It forces the viewer to majorly suspend disbelief in order to enjoy the film. However, here is the difference between good writing and bad writing, good acting and bad acting: Denzel is a likable actor, a highly watchable actor and he embodies the roles he takes on. We believe him as human being therefore we believe any situation he gets himself into. But, the likability factor can only get him so far. The writing has to be on par as well. If the Russian mobsters where caricatures of themselves rather than scary sons o' bitches, then it would've been harder to believe the story. If the characters Denzel befriends and helps throughout the story hadn't been written as real people it would've been harder to believe. If the main bad guy had been written even a hair cartoon-ier... it would've been much more difficult to believe. But, with good acting and good writing, comes good movies. There is a Nicolas Cage movie that came out this year (that I'm sure you've never heard of) called Rage. There were similar plot elements to The Equalizer, but it was a terribly written film. It was lazily directed and half-acted. I LOVE Nicolas Cage. I get giddy whenever I see him come out with a new film (which has to be every other month), but this one was so bad it didn't even cross over into so-bad-it's-good territory. It's the difference of writing and acting. The same idea put into the hands of a qualified writer, an experienced director and a fantastic actor make the movie a lot more watchable.
Denzel plays Robert, an employee at a Home Depot-esque shop who everyone essentially likes because he's just "a good dude". He's helping an overweight co-worker to get down in pounds in order to apply for a security job. He's a good guy not because he wants to reap the rewards of tons of people owing him favors, but because he's genuinely a good guy. He's also a bit of an insomniac. Every night he makes his way down to a local diner in order to read his books. There he meets a friendly prostitute, Teri (Chloe Grace-Moritz), whom he befriends. All is well and good until she is beaten within an inch of her life by her Russian mob boss pimp. Robert decides to take this into his own hands and kills the hell out of every Russian funk in the room. What he doesn't know is that he's essentially taken out every member of the East coast Russian mob hub. So, the Russian boss sends this badass dude to figure out who made the hit and to take him out so that the Russian mob business can stop losing money. Robert is obviously against this idea and does everything in his power to make this plan fail.
Is it a great movie? No. Is it a highly enjoyable movie? Yes. Very much so. It doesn't set out to make an arthouse film with action in it. It doesn't set out to preach any sort of half-assed message. It sets out to be an enjoyable film that action fans alike can and will enjoy. It's well written, with fully fleshed out characters, but it's aware that its goal is nothing more than to show Denzel Washington beating the piss out of everyone who does wrong. It's almost like The Punisher but far less gay. Denzel has never done a sequel, but if there ever was a movie that most people are going to hope for one, this is it. It won't change your life, but you will have a very enjoyable two hours spent at the movies.
A-
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