The Equalizer 3 - Review

Rating: 3 out of 5

I'VE always found The Equalizer films to be something of an inferior, and lighter weight version of Denzel Washington's Man on Fire for the way in which it finds a conflicted hero coming to the aid of innocents. This third film in the franchise does little to dispel that notion, so it's perhaps fitting that it should include a Man on Fire reunion.

It's that reunion that, arguably, delivers some of this film's finest moments, as the chemistry that previously existed between Washington and Dakota Fanning remains pleasingly intact.

Fanning, for her part, is not the innocent who requires protecting. Rather, she's a CIA rookie hand-picked by Washington's Robert McCall to provide assistance in bringing down an Italian crime syndicate with links to Middle Eastern terrorists and a very lethal new drug variant.

In that respect, Fanning becomes part pursuer and part ally - the two developing and evolving an uneasy alliance that's defined by the mystery surrounding McCall - not to mention the movie's central question: is McCall a good man or a bad mad?

Washington toys with this throughout. Are bad deeds in the name of good ever morally or ethically correct? But can good always overcome bad without them?

The Equalizer 3 doesn't spend too much time getting into the morality at play, lending to the suspicion that - on a creative level - it knows the answer: violence wins.

Certainly, there's an extra relish to this outing that is arguably the most violent in the franchise to date. The sadism at play sometimes feels voyeuristic, especially in the way that director Antoine Fuqua leans into the stylistic ways of portraying it.

But then The Equalizer is as much about the stylized violence as it is the morality surrounding it and this being a third film means that it's playing to an established audience, who enter with a certain sense of expectancy. And, in that respect, it delivers.

The plot finds McCall initially in Sicily, dealing with a hitherto untraceable criminal mastermind, only to become wounded in the process, and finding himself in a picture postcard Italian seaside resort for recuperation.

As time goes by, however, he comes to view this idyllic community as a potential new home - and is therefore mortified to find its peaceful existence threatened by another crime family with links to the Mafia.

When a polite offer to desist their campaign of fear goes unheeded, it's left to McCall to employ his skill set to definitive effect.

The Equalizer 3 does everything it says on the label and little more. If you've made it this far, you should be satisfied with what it delivers.

Washington is great, lending far more gravitas than the central role probably merits; Fanning is good value and there's decent support from the Italian contingent. The setting is also beautiful, with the Italian locations surely now set to become a tourist hot-spot.

There is at least one moment that grates: a scene involving the community coming to the assistance of McCall having just previously failed to for one of their own, smacks of the same kind of American saviour complex as many white saviour complex films do.

But in the main this is solidly enjoyable, if formulaic.