The Equalizer

Seen at Vladikavkaz Cinema in North Ossetia

Cecil says: My alternative title for this film is: Russian mafia meets its match in B&Q.

Basically, it’s a chance for Denzil Washington to play the tough guy, but apparently a goodie. It’s just got loads of violence, much of it far too graphic for my liking, pretty horrible characters with far too much testosterone for their own or anyone else’s good, and women characters that are all either helpless or caught up in vice or both.

Admittedly, we may have missed out on the subtleties of the dialogue since the whole thing was dubbed into Russian, but I somehow don’t expect we missed too much.

All it did for me was make me scared to walk the 200m back to our hotel in case any of the Russian youth around us in the cinema had got any ideas from the film.

*

Bea says: Once again we had limited choice at our nearest cinema while on the road.  Many years ago in the late 80s I think, I used to watch the ?BBC version of the The Equalizer television series with my dad as we both liked it.  The series featured mild mannered, middle aged but ex-MI5 agent Edward Woodward as The Equalizer – a kind of Robin Hood-style hitman, who settles the score for marginilised and vulnerable people (usually women) who for some reason the police can’t or won’t help.  As I recall, Edward may have advertised in a newspaper (The Times maybe?) and people would leave him messages on his answerphone – how quaintly antiquated that seems now.

Well, there aren’t that many similarities between that The Equaliser and this one.  Denzel is middle aged, mild mannered and a quiet and exacting type, as was Woodward, and clearly has some kind of training to be able to take on 5-6 bodyguards etc single handedly.  He does befriend a young local working girl who frequents the same diner as he does, and when she is beaten up by her pimps he takes them on.  There ends any similarities I remember – the rest of the film is extreme graphic violence of what ensues, with The Equalizer helping out a few friends along the way.  It is extremely graphic, I think – unnecessarily so and actually ends up (perhaps also because as Cecil says, we didn’t understand much of the dialogue due to it being dubbed into Russian) making Washington’s Equalizer appear a bit of a psychopath. I concur with Cecil - It certainly did give us both the heebie-jeebies walking back to our hotel down the dark evening streets of Vladikavkaz.

All seems to end well however, with the young working girl surviving, and finding a new life path, and The Equaliser continuing in his mild mannered way.  I read that this film had a troubled production, so I hope that there isn’t a sequel on the way.  I don’t know what Washington was thinking of accepting this role as it hardly portrays his talents.  My advice – buy the original 80s series on DVD for an exercise in the more subtle approach to violence.

*

If I stay

Seen at the Lara Cinema in Trabzon, Turkey

Bea says: This ended up being the best choice of a pretty average bunch of standard release movies for the one evening we had free in Trabzon, and we were delighted that our new found travelling friends Jem and Jane (blog link) decided to join us.

For me, If I Stay would have been a very good story and character led depiction of a quiet, focused, sensible teenager navigate the transitional choices of childhood into adulthood – should she reap the reward of her years of hard work on the cello by accepting a place at Julliard rather than moving in with her local boyfriend and attending a local college etc etc.  Primarily but not exclusively told from the perspective of Mia, the teenager, the film does manage to capture her voice and did take me back to that time of my life very successfully actually, when I too was a quiet, focused, sensible young woman with a local boyfriend and decisions to make.  However this aspect of the story only takes up about half of the film narrative.

What didn’t work for me was the other half, which felt a bit like the writer/producers panicked a bit at some point and thought not enough was happening so added loads more narrative to the script.

 Mia‘s “rocker” parents, who can’t quite believe they have created this cuckoo in the nest, were poorly developed – particularly the mother role (name actress playing) – and just too stereotypical for words.  Their characterisation, and the plot in general, suffered from the entire selling premise of the film - that the whole family are in a (spoiler alert) fatal car accident after deciding to go for a drive on a snow day (er – who does that?), and only Mia is left and must decide whether to stay (ie on Earth, alive) or go.

Cue moving bedside scenes with best friend (actually by far the better actress and a shame she didn’t play the lead role), boyfriend and grandfather.  There is a place for a good weepy, but I just got annoyed that this was distracting us from the much more interesting life choices (not just whether to stay or go) that Mia was having to make, and which were kind of just resolved or forgotten when the stay or go decision had to be made.  Sure, this happens sometimes in people’s lives.  But much, much more often people’ lives are set out and defined for many years due to decisions they take as young people – and isn’t that a far more interesting story to tell, really?

Felt like two separate films merged together, rather unsuccessfully for me.

**1/2

Cecil says: I didn’t relate to any of the characters in the way Bea did (even though I was a shy, sensible teenager, I never actually had any major life decisions to make in those years). But I did enjoy this film. Maybe because it was a relief to relax and listen to English after a week or more in a foreign land; maybe it was just nice to let the story flow over me, regardless of whether she stayed or went?

Funnily enough, the parallel narrative that annoyed Bea – the accident and its aftermath – felt the most significant to me, but that’s probably because I only recently had a car accident of my own and know only too well how close it was to a stay or go moment if things had been a split second different. That doesn’t make this a better film or storyline, but it meant I did connect to that aspect of the plot.

Part of the fun of watching films in foreign countries is to people watch and to pick up difference in the cinema-going experience. In Turkey, like in Switzerland, films are clearly cut at a half way point for an interval, though in this case it seemed a totally random point, in the middle of some scene or dialogue. The lights suddenly came on and the film stopped; for a second we all thought the projector had broken. But no, people were off to buy drinks, have a chat, check phones (though most people were doing that throughout the film anyway).

And then without any warning it was back on again. I guess Turks must know how long to take for their loo breaks…

So, yes I did enjoy this film more than Bea. The outcome doesn’t matter really, though our friends thought it was very obviously where the film was heading.

For a weekend movie in your home town or thousands of miles away, I’d say go for it. But don’t expect any Oscars

***