The Equalizer September 2014

or
Home Mart: Let’s Kill Something Together

 

!MAYBE A FEW SPOILERS!

What the Fuqua, Antoine?! How the heck can you mess up a movie that has a decent enough revenge script, Denzel Washington as your lead (along with a killer support cast) AND some of the most beautiful cinematography I’ve ever seen? What the hell were you thinking? Okay, you didn’t make a terrible movie, but you surely didn’t make a great movie either. Instead, you took all those wonderful elements mentioned above and created a steaming pile of mediocrity, and that is worse than making something completely awful!

The script was solid, a great storyline about a mild mannered hardware store employee who has a black op, ass kicking demon hiding behind his smile, and one day something happens to force that demon out in the open. And yeah, I know, we’ve seen it all before in First Blood (1982), Valdez is Coming (1971) Death Wish (1974). . . Hell, almost every Marvel character is based on the “mild mannered” appearing schmuck who has a secret, superhero identity.  But what makes this script interesting to me is not that you have the demon hiding out in the average Joe type character, but the length of time the script takes in exploring the transformation from nice guy to cold blooded assassin. Unlike Banner’s Hulk personality that doesn’t need more than a dirty look to get him all “smashing” mad, Robert McCall’s dark side is buried so deep that it takes the attempted murder of the teenage prostitute he’s befriended to finely get him to his Popeye Moment: That’s all I can stands, I can’t stands no more! For me this was the best part of the movie. The quiet moments in your movie, Antoine, are where you excel.

And yeah, your casting was perfect. Denzel (the good guy psychopathic killer) and Marton Csokas (Teddy, the evil psycho killer) . . . wow! Their interactions were so intense I was nervously chewing up the theatre seat cushion! (Sorry, Warren Theatre. I’ll pay for that.) And no matter what the other ‘reviewers” say, Chloë Grace Moretz was brilliant as the young hooker looking for a way out of “the life.” And I’m gonna give you credit for picking Mauro Fiore as your cinematographer. Man, he sure has a way of getting that dark, depressing look of the big city . . . and also finding the beauty in that darkness. I was a little bit annoyed with the final shot of McCall sitting at a booth in his favorite café, reading a book and sipping tea. It was a bit too reminiscent of Edward Hopper’s  Nighthawks (1942).

BUT where you went wrong, Antoine, were the fight scenes! What the heck, man! The whole first part of the movie is a build up to that first fight scene! It’s the payoff for us sitting with Robert McCall as he struggles with the question: “Should I let the demon out, make things right?” It’s the moment we, the audience, are waiting for. NOW we’re gonna see that demon from hell pull out a big old can of kick ass! And what did you do with the scene, Antoine? You jump cut the crap out of it! Audience couldn’t see the action. Couldn’t see the fight! It was such a bland scene, totally uninteresting to watch, and every fight scene in this movie was awful. Antoine, buddy, you need to take Hitchcock’s advice about action sequences. “If you are going to have a crop duster in your movie, it must dust crops.” Antoine, if you bill a character as a bad ass, ass kicker, then we, the audience, must see him KICK some major gluteus maximus! I don’t know what it is with you directors these days. You really think that shooting a fight scene in close ups and jump cutting it until it turns into blurry goo is the way it should be done? Well, if God had known how you were going to direct the action sequences in this movie, there would have been an 11^th commandment: THOU SHALL NOT DIRECT ACTION SEQUENCES, ANTOINE!