REVIEW: The Equalizer 3 (2023)

Movie Reviews

If 2023 has proven anything, it’s that giving people what they want leads to success. Barbie is the most glaring example, an expected hit that turned into a phenomenon by pleasing its target audience. Oppenheimer did much the same, making a thoughtful movie for people craving one. Now, The Equalizer 3 has arrived following trailers promising what fans of the series – and action fans in general – want to see: Denzel Washington giving a bunch of evildoers what they deserve. And it delivers… mostly.

While completing another of his Good Samaritan missions in Sicily, former Marine and intelligence agent Robert McCall (Denzel Washington) is gravely injured and, upon returning to mainland Italy, is taken in by a doctor who tends to his wounds. Recovering in the small coastal town of Altamonte, McCall grows to like his new neighbors, and vice versa. When he sees the local Mafia – called the Camorra – terrorizing the town, he takes it upon himself to liberate his new friends from their iron grip.

The Equalizer 3 begins perfectly, with a reminder of what Robert McCall is capable of when faced with those who victimize good people. We don’t know why he’s in Sicily (and won’t find out for a long time), but we know he’s up against the worst of the worst, as always, and we know he’ll make short work of them. This is the fun of the Equalizer movies, and Denzel Washington is still perfect as McCall, facing down the world’s worst monsters without worry, knowing he’s more dangerous than all of them put together. Interestingly, it’s his humanity that gets him injured, the soft spot for the innocent that drives him to put his deadly skills to use in his retirement. This is all established in about ten minutes, and it’s vital for bringing us back into McCall’s world and reminding us of his heart.

But really, the entire first act is a great lesson in pacing. McCall is nursed back to health and slowly rebuilds himself, walking with a cane through Altamonte and immersing himself in the culture, particularly the people. He makes friends with a waitress, a market owner, a policeman, and anyone else he meets, falling in love with the small town that embraced him at his lowest. This is juxtaposed with the introduction of the Camorra, the gangsters who are bleeding the town dry – of money, property, and blood. They’re sort of like the prototypical Western villains, wanting to buy up the land so they can turn Altamonte into a resort destination and make a killing off the tourists. They also demand extortion money from the businesses they leave standing, and they have the police scared to act. The main villains, a pair of brothers played by Andrea Scarduzio and Andrea Dodero, are set up well, with the older one the self-appointed dictator of Altamonte, and the younger his arrogant enforcer. With every beating, murder, and fire, the tension builds in the audience and in McCall.

That leaves the payoff, and it’s good, but this is also where The Equalizer 3 falters. We’ve seen The Equalizer and The Equalizer 2, so we know what’s coming: McCall is going to pay these thugs back with interest. And there are some immensely satisfying scenes to that effect, which Denzel Washington plays just right, knowing not only how to beat on the bad guys but how to deliver his dialogue so that we know he’s in control. The problem is, there are too few of them; The Equalizer 3 doesn’t feel like it has a second act, with the buildup of the first shifting to catharsis in the blink of an eye. The first film, for example, had McCall slowly taking down the Russian mob while performing the equivalent of video game sidequests where he helped ordinary people. The moment where he tells his nemesis that he’s going to take the mob apart “brick by brick” is wonderful, and the movie shows us every step of McCall fulfilling that promise. The Equalizer 3 feels truncated in that respect, like it could have had a lot more of McCall making the Camorra feel pain. What’s in the movie is great, but there should have been more.

But with that caveat, The Equalizer 3 still earns the price of your ticket with some fun action and suspense. The elements of the first two that made them so unique and enjoyable are here, like the occasional use of suggestion over outright violence. It’s fun to watch some bad guys walk into a room and gape at the aftermath of McCall tearing through their henchmen, wondering what kind of trouble they’ve gotten themselves into by underestimating him. And the action sequences still play out almost like they take place in a horror movie, where McCall is the slasher, the monster, the thing that goes bump in the night, stalking victims rather than dispensing justice. Each one is expertly staged by Antoine Fuqua, who could probably do this in his sleep by now. The scenes of the Camorra victimizing the townsfolk of Altamonte are hard to watch sometimes – not because they’re graphic (although the violence goes pretty hard) but because it makes your blood boil seeing what they’re doing to innocent people. But it’s all in service of the moment when McCall begins to fight back.

The acting is good throughout The Equalizer 3. Denzel Washington is the standout, of course, and more is asked of him than anyone else. This time, he plays McCall as a man questioning how he’s lived his life, wondering if his acts of violence are worth the good he intends with them, with lots of religious imagery to drive the point home. But when he sees the Camorra hurting the people who selflessly helped him while he’s helpless to do anything about it, he gets his answer. The various people of Altamonte are effective in their sort of rote roles, like the friendly waitress (Gaia Scodellaro), the congenial doctor (Remo Girone), the one good cop in a bad town (Eugenio Mastrandrea), and so on; they’re not overly complex, but they’re likable, and we get why McCall likes them. Meanwhile, Dakota Fanning plays Emma Collins, a rookie CIA agent McCall informs about a local drug-running operation with ties to Middle Eastern terrorism; she’s fine, but the subplot could’ve easily been excised in favor of more confrontations between McCall and the Camorra.

You probably already know if you’re going to enjoy The Equalizer 3, and I don’t mean that as a criticism because it’s my kind of movie, too. I wish it had a little more of the good stuff, but what’s here is a lot of fun, and it’s anchored by another winning Denzel Washington performance.