The Equalizer 3
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MA15+, 110 minutes
2 stars
Now 68, Denzel Washington has joined the ranks of what we might call the twilight vigilantes.
Charles Bronson was an early example, starring in Death Wish movies well into his 60s.
Michael Caine was a decade or so older when he played Harry Brown. And Liam Neeson has had a late career resurgence as a man of action - sometimes authorised, sometimes not - in movies like Cold Pursuit. And he's 71.
These movies depend on the charisma of their stars and the willing suspension of disbelief. At a time when most men are retiring and contemplating things like hip replacements and heart medication, the leads in these movies are kicking butt, and stabbing it, and shooting it, and breaking it.
Occasionally they get hurt, but they recover and go on with what they were doing. And nothing can stop them.
For those who have seen and liked the previous Equalizer films, this is more in the same vein, so you needn't read on - just go and watch it.
The trilogy, as it now is, was inspired by the 1980s series The Equalizer, with Edward Woodward, in his 50s, a comparatively youthful former intelligence agent who uses his skills to help people. It was bound by the strictures of US network TV in its era; the current movie series - with films released 2014, 2018, and now - is not.
Denzel Washington is back as Robert McCall, a former Marine and Defence Intelligence Agency officer, who took on the Russian mob in the first film and took revenge when a friend was killed in the second, with a few side excursions along the way.
Still haunted by his past, he's moved to southern Italy for a peaceful retirement. Any fool could have told him that the country that's the home of the Mafia probably wasn't the ideal destination for such a plan, but maybe, just maybe, he didn't intend his vigilante days to be over just yet.
Or maybe he did, and he simply needs to clean up the place so he can enjoy his cups of tea and pleasant interactions with the locals in peace.
The film begins with the evidence of McCall's latest burst of violence and culminates in one of those silly James Bond-villain-style face-offs where the baddies could easily kill the hero but are so complacent and gabby that he manages to defeat them.
However, on his way out he is wounded and after disposing of his assailant, he falls unconscious, waking up to find himself under the care of a local doctor (Remo Girone) who knowingly tells him he "fell" (a common occurrence hereabouts).
When he recovers, McCall calls the CIA, telling young agent Emma Collins (Dakota Fanning) that there's a big stash of drugs and money where he's just been.
He also takes on a brutal gang led by two brothers who operate everything from protection rackets to drug trafficking and who have at least some of the local police in their pockets.
While the CIA is coming in to collaborate with Italian law enforcement - there's an international terrorism angle - McCall is going to do his own thing.
Richard Wenk's script doesn't offer much that's new and the characters, good and bad, are pretty thin but director Antoine Fuqua provides plenty of local colour - perhaps a bit too much; the film could be tighter - and stages scenes of action and violence well.
This is not a film for the squeamish with lots of blood flowing, gushing and spraying depending on the nature of the wound inflicted. One violent scene not involving a gun recalls a memorable moment from The Godfather.
The Equalizer 3 is certainly no masterpiece but does what it sets out to do and vigilantism, while not to be condoned in a civilised society, usually provides a vicarious thrill.