The Equalizer (2014)
What do you see when you look at me?
Ever look at person and think to yourself, “I wonder what their story is?” Are they just someone looking for a good time, maybe just trying to get by? Perhaps they used to kill people for a living, but retired to the civilian life and and trying to peace out for the rest of their days? Perhaps they were super famous and now are trying to be incognito? The point is you just just never can tell - and in tonight’s case, one should be especially careful about their interactions with books whose cover you can’t judge. When the balance tips, you might just find yourself in the path of The Equalizer.
Classic story here. Simple story here. Really, a child should be able to follow this without problems - although I don’t think the subject matter is appropriate for most children. A man who lost his wife is going about his days being an absolute treasure to his workplace and neighborhood. You couldn’t find a nicer guy, willing to joke around and help out. The story gets kicked into gear however after a local dive patron whom the man befriends ends up in the hospital after some pimps decide she needs to be taught a lesson. See, our main character doesn’t take this very kindly, and goes to try and solve the situation via peace and money, but turns out the pimps prefer war - and unknowingly picked the wrong man to go to war with. What ensues is a quest of righteous vengeance and exacting details as this mysterious man turns out to be far more formidable than anyone could have guessed.
Acting is pretty good here. You’ll like who you are meant to like, not care for the ones that you aren’t generally supposed to desire. Our main character has this double layer of incredibly pleasant and ruthlessly efficient. Many of the “good” side characters - such as the singer or the security guard, can endear themselves to you without needing a ton of backstory or really heavy character building, and just by interactions between the main and them it ends up building them up quite well enough. Stand out is probably the security guard, who does have a few extra scenes to help flesh him out as likeable. When it comes to bad guys, they are all suitably bad - these aren’t people you feel conflicted about getting cut from the movie by a violent act. There isn’t a whole lot of time devoted to making them anything more than that either - it’s not quite the level of a the body count fodder of a slasher movie, but if the slasher was the good guy it’d be a pretty decent comparison.
Like I said, the actors do a good job. Nobody here really comes off as being phoned in or under-acted, at the very least in the main cast. Some side characters can come off a little weak, but I’m not entirely convinced this isn’t intentional as it does fit the character itself to be acted in that manner. As implied in that last bit, you can guess that the baddies don’t have a whole large pallet of which to be awesome standouts in the acting department - we have one villainous counterpart that gets a good few moments to be impressively frightening as a threat, and one other villain who gets to be a much more afraid little punching bag compared to him - and those two both get acted quite well. The backup that inevitably is getting buried? Well, that one dude had a real nice mustache.
Another day, another dollar.
The setting is modern, so I’ll just skip and spare us the line about modern attire. The setting itself looks good, but also doesn’t really stand out at all given the modern nature of it. The characters stand out in a way that you won’t get the main ones confused with each other, even if some of the bad guys can get a little samey given the tattoos and suits. Body language works pretty well, and I might as well put it in this section given that lack of other bits to really talk about in here. Our main also does a wonderful job of that.
Audio is good, although personally as usual I’m stuck not carrying most of it out with me. At the time though? It’s some pretty good stuff that mixes between mood enhancing and just sounds good stuff. Line delivery is good, although can be a bit quiet at times because there’s just a lot of lines that aren’t spoken loudly. Mixing is good however, and you won’t be having a hard time picking up lines because of other sounds - just because the lines are quiet. Sound effects - like gunshots and the likes - all sound good and well done, no complaints there.
Effects work on the costume side we’ve gone over - the other effects are pretty well done, but I have to admit it’s not all high-intensity stuff. We have one or two sets of explosions - and those all look great - and the rest is really a lot of blood and bruise injuries. That before mentioned comparison of our main to a slasher villain isn’t too far off here - the main is a murder machine. A good deal of them aren’t super graphic, but there is certainly some that can get a wince over how brutal they are, and a number of them that are off screen - including what’s the funniest kill in my opinion.
Another dollar, another day.
The movies a good flick for action fans. The character interactions might endear some drama fans to it, but I think the movie is more prone to be liked by those who like action and thrills than intense interpersonal drama and character building. There is an interesting point to made towards the studying of the main character and the tiny details that he exhibits across the movie. You want some fun? It’s pretty decent choice.