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.

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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.

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