The Equalizer (2014)
Cast: Denzel Washington, Chloe Grace Moretz, Melissa Leo, Bill Pullman, Marton Csokas, Haley Bennett
Director: Antoine Fuqua
Genre: Thriller/Action
Synopsis: Robert McCall is a mysterious man who fakes his death as a former black ops commando and dedicates himself to beginning a new life with a new identity. When someone has problems, he will help them because he is the Equalizer who fights for justice. However, he meets a young girl who is a teenage prostitute and is under the control of ultra-violent Russian gangsters. McCall finds his desire for justice reawakened, and he has to save her from the Russian gangster with his skills.
Review:
Antoine Fuqua brings a successful masterpiece to the big screen: the vigilante action thriller film, The Equalizer. This film receives a lot of praise for its acting, soundtrack, visual style, and action sequences, there are great choreographed fights, special effects, and fantastic explosions.
At first, the acting skill of Denzel Washington as Robert McCall, the leading character in this movie, is worthy of admiration and respect. He can enter the character which is inexorable and hospitable in a different situation. His direction of the drama and the action blend seamlessly, drawing us into the complexity of this character-driven piece.
Denzel Washington acts as Robert McCall.
The character is not looking for any trouble but seeing injustice happening around him, which invokes his desire for justice. He believes in people for second chances; hence, before he kills, he gives each of them a chance to turn back from what they are doing. The great choreographed fights performed by Denzel Washington are very eye-opening for the audience as the action coordination of the fights does not have any weapons involved, but cleverly uses the surrounding things to murder people in a scientific way.
For the supporting character, it seems that Chloe Grace Moretz, who acts as Alina, does not show much in this movie. However, she is the one who propels the whole plot forward as the character she acted is facing the problem which becomes a teenage prostitute and under the control of an ultra-violent Russian gangster at the beginning of the storyline. Therefore, she is the reason for reawakening Robert McCall’s justice and letting him come out of self-imposed retirement to fight for what is right.
Chloe Grace Moretz acts as Alina, the teenage prostitute.
Her acting skill as a prostitute is quite a match to the character who is kind of punky and ambitious to be a singer. Unfortunately, she is unable to achieve her ambition because of her fate. With the support of Robert McCall, she records her composing songs and burns into a cd for McCall to become her first audience.
Marton Csokas acts as Nicolai Itchenko.
The other supporting character I admire is Nicolai Itchenko, acted by Marton Csokas. His cold-blooded and brutality in the way he inflicts physical harm upon others suggest that he is a violent, cruel person as it is rather inhuman. The facial expression and eye contact of Denzel Washington (act as Robert McCall) and Marton Csokas (act as Nicolai Itchenko) successfully show the feelings and emotions of their character which are cool and inexorability personalities, while Chloe Grace Moretz (act as Alina) shows her emotions which are hopeless, helpless, and deep despair.
The camera angle of each scene is well-focus on every character. They wisely used the rule of thirds, the golden ratio, symmetrical, and asymmetrical techniques to achieve cinematic and evocative visuals. The camera shots are used successfully on emphasizing the actions and presence of each character, especially the use of close-up shot in this movie which the camera focus on the facial expression and eye contact of the actors and actresses.
Close-up shot of Robert McCall when he is observing the situation before the fight.
The production team recorded each scene with a film lighting kit, artificial lights of the surrounding area, and natural light, the sunlight, to achieve the cinematic look. They used a lot of three-point lighting setups in the film to set the subject apart from the background. They created the desired light effect which not only emphasizes the props and scene elements but also the perspective of the scene and how much light the audience should be able to see. The harshness of light and color they used also emphasizes the expression of emotions of each character.
The facial expression of Robert McCall when he is thinking about whether he wants to help Alina.
There are many techniques of video editing that have been used in post-production to create many scenes by putting the raw footage of various shots together to become a film. The editors used different types of techniques, especially slo-mo, special effects, consecutive cuts, and so on. They used a lot of slo-mo in the leading character, Robert McCall’s scenes which emphasize his observation of the surrounding by using a close-up shot of his eyes and the props of each scene. They also used the special visual effect to portray a dramatic moment, emphasizing the action of the characters, and achieving the highest state of tension. The fade transition is used to convey a mood to the audience, especially when Robert McCall thinks about his past, the fade transition applied fade in and turns the color of the scene into black, and fade out and turns the color of the scene into yellowish to create an old-memory-like feel.
The fast-cutting technique is also implemented in the fighting scenes to imply energy and show the chaos of the scenes. To achieve the highest sense of tension, the cross-cutting editing technique is used when Itchenko and his henchmen break into McCall’s house to kill McCall. This technique is used to intercut the two scenarios which make the audience nervous as they think Itchenko and his henchmen will find him (first scenario) while McCall is in the toilet to heal his wound with hot honey (second scenario) but end up not see him because McCall is in the toilet of another house. They used a lot of editing techniques in this movie and I like the fighting scenes which achieve the highest stage of tension.
This movie has 18 soundtracks which include pre-existing music, dialogue, and sound effects. The background music is used when the leading character, McCall is doing his stuff such as placing the tea pack on a handkerchief and wrapping it up, reading his books, thinking of someone and his past, fighting the enemies, and so on. The background music is used to enhance the dramatic narrative and the emotional impact of the scenes. All music is well-composed in terms of style and tone to match the theme of movie and emotions of the characters in every scene, especially the syncing of the music when McCall is fighting with the enemies, the music syncs the scenes perfectly.
At last, although the storyline of this movie is quite simple as the leading character, Robert McCall, saves Alina from the Russian gangster and fights for justice, the acting skills of Denzel Washington and the outcomes from the production team are worthy of respect and admiration. I will recommend this film to those who are action movie fans and like revenge plots because it is a superbly acted, exciting, and violent ride movie.
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