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An Italian drug lord arriving at a hidden villa in Sicily sets the scene for a character pulling up in a jeep with a child in the passenger seat. There is an army of goons lying throughout the courtyard with their bodies dismembered and bloodied, in what would otherwise be a great location to spend a vacation. The man leaves the kid inside. He steps out of the jeep, wielding a pistol, and goes inside the house with one of his henchman, only to find an even greater horror: more carcasses of people scattered across the place with their faces cleaved off by a butcher’s knife. Seems like someone with a lot of hatred shot them. Now The Notorious Robert McCall also called Denzel Washington is a hitman ghost. The scene cuts to him sitting underneath gunmen. In a flash, he takes care of them, but it isn’t clear where McCall is – the prisoners or the gunmen. McCall takes the keys from the deceased drug lord, which also begs the question: What was it that McCall came to get?
An army of killers sets up in what seems to be a mundane package, which is exactly what McCall was looking for, but the rest of the film portrays this scene as a ham-fisted McGuffin. This opening showcasing the violence as well as the thick use of special effects alone is enough to hint where the action has gone.
The Equalizer 3, directed by Antoine Fuqua, is the final installment in the franchise, or at least so many believe. This marks the fifth collaboration between Washington and Fuqua.
This somewhat shocking partnership makes one scratch their heads. Sure, their first collaboration, “Training Day”, netted Washington his lone Academy Award for Best Actor. But their later films have gotten harsher and dumber starting from this triumph. What, one might ask, does Washington get from these films? It is a partnership that frequently brings to mind the run of Anthony Mann and Jimmy Stewart over the course of the eight movies they made together (though, one must say Fuqua-Washington are more thematically impoverished) when Stewart had to abandon his ‘prestige garnished’ good-guy image and aw-shucks mannerisms to tackle darker subjects within Mann’s liberating westerns. One can see Washington experiencing the same pleasure of not caring what kind of adventurous sensations the audience goes through.
Strap yourself in because, make no mistake, “The Equalizer 3” is hot garbage. It’s also a Incredibly interesting yet misguided attempt by Fuqua and Washington to construct their own Mann-Stewart film. Turn a blind eye to how the Western genre stains this picture, but keep an eye on the fact that McCall’s raid on the villa, where he got severly injured and in turn got discovered by a local cop, Gio (Eugenio Mastrandrea). Who took him to a quaint seaside Italian village where a local doctor called Enzo (Remo Girone) treated the hitman’s wounds.
As a ‘man taking a break’ McCall would like to keep himself away from anything that would require him to intervene. Though one of the gang leaders, Marco (Andrea Dodero) does seem to keep the people of the town in check. While recuperating, McCall learns to love the surroundings because of the relaxation they provide him. Watching from the outside, McCall knows he will intervene if things get out of hand like any other western tale. He will show these people what standing up against their oppressor entails.
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