“Equalizer 3,” Starring Denzel Washington, Dakota Fanning and Eugenio Mastrandrea, was released to theaters on Sept. 1 and it feels like another Steven Seagal movie. “Equalizer 3” is filled with hand to hand combat and relentless fight scenes.
In the beginning of the movie, Denzel seems to be exhausted and ready to retire in Naples, but it doesn’t work out that way. It rarely turns out the way it’s supposed to with Robert McCall.
Robert McCall, portrayed by Washington, is given a place to stay by Gino Bonucci, portrayed by Mastrandrea, in Naples. McCall begins traveling from place to place, getting a lay of the land and is followed by a female CIA agent Emma Collins, portrayed by Fanning. She begins profiling McCall while following him into a restaurant appearing to corner him, but McCall is too counterintuitive that he had her figured out before she did. They begin to have a sort of coded conversation for a while then she explains that she needed his help destabilizing the Italian Mafia in Naples.
In another scene in the film, McCall asks the leader of a small group of Italian mobsters to do whatever he and his mobsters do somewhere else. He asks him if his watch is a Timex and snatched his hand, “This is the median nerve, that’s a level 3,” as he squeezes and applies pressure to the median nerve. “You don’t want it to get to level four.” This scene to me is by far the best one.
It really appears that this might be the last ‘Equalizer’ movie, but McCall’s high energy level doesn’t say the same thing.
For a man who is supposed to be retiring, McCall doesn’t get to take a break at all in this third part of the Equalizer series.
From my experience as a Director of Photography, I can see how the aesthetics for this scene created a calm and non combative tone, but that was far from what happened. McCall got active with the action from this scene forward.
The sound effects are crisp, the snap of bones, the cracks of arms being bent in the wrong direction makes you cringe. “Equalizer 3” keeps you in suspense waiting for what thrilling scene will be next.
In a gruesome scene, a man being disciplined by an Italian mob boss got his hand cut off and the look on his face tells it all about how he felt. His facial expression made the pain look very realistic.With a hand covering his mouth, he could do nothing but keep his pain to himself. All of these details illustrate how convinced the actors were and the time they made to make the emotional responses and reactions believable.
“Equalizer 3” is a classic Italian mob movie with a vigilante twist, with Washington as the vigilante while being a bounty hunter.
McCall’s aikido style has no need for guns and explosions to give the movie that action-packed experience. McCall’s martial arts are more than enough. Any weaponry used is stealthy, like hand to hand combat or small knives and silencers.
If you like action mob international vigilante movies, you would really enjoy “Equalizer 3.” You can watch it at the drive-in or the movie theaters with prices varying on time and location.
