The Equalizer 3 (Film Review)

2023 Sony Pictures
Directed by: Antoine Fuqua; Written by: Richard Wenk
Starring: Denzel Washington, Dakota Fanning, David Denman, Sonia Ammar, and Remo Girone
MPAA Rating: R; Running Time: 109 Minutes
The Nicsperiment Score: 7/10

Violent do-gooder, Robert McCall, off on a personal quest in Sicily, finds himself embroiled in a violent altercation with a drug lord and his minions. McCall is able to kill them all and begin to expose their operation, but he's also severely injured in the process. After taking the ferry back to the mainland, McCall pulls off the side of the road and blacks out, only to awake at the home of a local doctor in a remote and beautiful Italian village. As McCall begins to physically recover, he finds himself at home in the small town, befriending the locals and falling in love with their quiet, close-knit way of life. McCall even begins wondering if there can be redemption for a man who has lived as violent a life as he. However, this idyllic peace doesn't last for long. McCall soon notices that Mafia members are squeezing local business owners. When McCall witnesses the criminal organization commit violent acts against the citizens of his newly adopted home, he can't sit idly by. With the CIA on his trail and the Mafia turning up the heat, McCall must return to his violent ways...and in violence, there is no one better.
After the fun genre thrills of 2014's The Equalizer, I thought 2018's The Equalizer 2 was a bit of a misstep. The sequel had less of Denzel Washington's McCall character violently protecting and helping people, and more of him engaging in a personal grudge match with an old co-worker. 2023's The Equalizer 3 both boils McCall's personal ethos down to its essence, and provides a satisfying conclusion to the trilogy. McCall is finally given some peace and rest, but is also tasked with fulfilling his violent destiny, defending those weaker than him, with the ones he protects no longer just acquaintances, but essentially his brothers and sisters. Antoine Fuqua wisely slow builds the film once McCall arrives in the village, allowing the audience to learn its charms and rhythms and citizens' routines, showing just why this place would become so vital to McCall. With that done, few things are more satisfying than a camera pan to McCall sitting quietly at a café table, as the hapless rude bad guys bully the local citizens. Knowing that McCall is about to deliver brutal justice is almost more fun than seeing him deliver that justice. Almost.
The Equalizer 3 features four action beats, three of which are quite brutal, two of which blindside the audience because...
The Equalizer 3 is a horror film. Denzel Washington is Michael Myers, the gang members are the unsuspecting, stupid teenagers, and here, Michael Myers is the hero. With his head shaved, looking a little bulkier than usual, Washington exudes his Angel of Death persona more fully than in any other part of his career. There's a moment after Denzel surprises several braggadocious thugs with death, that he bends down, looks one of the corpses in the eyes, slightly tilts his head, and his own eyes look dead, absolutely dead, and all I could think of is Myers quizzically doing the same in the Halloween films. Fuqua even shoots these scenes like a horror film, with McCall striking out of the darkness, and his victims panicking in terror. It's awesome.
From a visual standpoint, Fuqua shoots The Equalizer 3 at the highest level he's ever achieved. Sweeping long shots and gorgeously framed and lit interiors of and in the Amalfi Coast of Italy are magnificent, even better highlighting the ugliness in the scenes where McCall takes action. There's a subtle romance between McCall and a local café owner, beautifully lit night scenes of a street feast at night, so much graceful beauty, my (vengeance loving) wife said afterward, "I enjoyed that. It was like a Hallmark movie with killing." This was her first Equalizer film, as Fuqua and Richard Wenk designed the movie for both newcomers and series fans alike. There are several brief, but major tie-ins with the first two films that had members of my theater audience awing in approval. While The Equalizer 3 isn't Shakespeare by any means, it's a fine action thriller that gets it done in 110 minutes, featuring a storied, aging actor whose prime seems endless.