The Equalizer (2014) * * *

Directed by:  Antoine Fuqua

Starring:  Denzel Washington, Marton Csokas, Chloe Grace Moretz, Bill Pullman, Melissa Leo, David Harbour

Robert McCall (Washington) is a former CIA agent who wants to live a quiet life in Boston working at Home Depot, but his sense of fair play and justice is violated when a young call girl named Teri (Moretz) comes into the coffee shop McCall frequents looking beat up.    Teri is under the thumb of the local Russian mob, and McCall wants Teri to have a future, so he pays a visit to the mobsters offering them a choice:   Let Teri go or face deadly consequences.    The mobsters laugh at the near sixtyish McCall, but within thirty seconds, McCall thrashes the joint and the war is underway.  

The Russians sent in their fixer Nikolai (Csokas), who foolishly does not fear McCall, but he will quickly learn to.    McCall is not only deadly, but smart, efficient, and collected.    He doesn't shout, he doesn't play around, and he isn't afraid to get dirty.    The mobsters think they their fates will be different, but we know better.   But, yet they trudge along trying to outwit and outmuscle McCall to their detriment.

Even at 59 at the time this movie was released, Washington was still a convincing Robert McCall.    He isn't Superman and the stunts and fights aren't over the top except in sheer brutality.    McCall gains justice in bloody, nasty fashion and because we care about McCall, we care about seeing the villains get theirs.     In another actor's hands, The Equalizer might not have been as effective or absorbing, but Denzel Washington is a lean, efficient, quiet everyman.     We learn a little of his background, with help of old CIA friends Susan and Brian Plummer (Leo and Pullman), who are the only people in the world who know his history and what led him to this point.   

Despite the violence, The Equalizer is somewhat thoughtful about McCall and about the idea of justice and second chances.     Maybe this is what drives McCall, and maybe this is why he offers his targets the chance to come correct or be disposed of.    Anton Chigurh from No Country for Old Men also had a sense of fair play (albeit more demented) in which a coin flip would determine the fate of some of his victims.    But, no one would mistake Chigurh for Robert McCall, but in many ways they are in the same business.

The Equalizer wasn't made to win Oscars; it will entertain the audience and give it what it wants.   It doesn't disappoint.    I recall Denzel Washington's film debut in 1981's Carbon Copy, in which he played the illegitimate black son of a white rich, corporate guy (George Segal).    The movie worked as racial satire, and Washington exhibited the charm and charisma he would bring to so many of his future roles.     At the time, and this has nothing to do with Washington's obvious talent, I didn't expect to see much more of Washington after Carbon Copy.    I anticipated (at the ripe old age of 11) that he would disappear like many talented actors do in Hollywood.    But, fortunately, I was wrong.