The mysterious vigilante Robert McCall (Denzel Washington) returns to exact yet more extravagantly bloody vengeance on an assortment of deserving bad guys. This time, for tenuous reasons that are not made clear until the end of the film, he finds himself in Italy. Specifically, a small town on the coast of Sicily full of smiling, thoroughly decent townsfolk, plus a gang of firebomb-happy mafia thugs. Eyeing the town as a potential location for his much-postponed retirement, McCall delves into his unique skill set and seemingly inexhaustible weapon stash to deal with the Camorra, while CIA agent Collins (Dakota Fanning) is on hand to tie up the loose ends.
With Antoine Fuqua once again in the director’s chair, and a violence-heralding musical motif on the score that sounds like an electric guitar being butchered, it’s very much business as usual in the third instalment of the Equalizer franchise: one that includes rigidly black and white moral delineations, decapitations and eye-socket trauma. But while there are no surprises here, there are visceral kicks to be found in the businesslike efficiency of McCall’s retribution, and the devilish glint in Washington’s eye as he delivers it.
