The Equalizer 3 is the latest in Antoine Fuqua’s action/thriller franchise. The film is one of the most boring and lackluster blockbusters in recent history. The action itself was pretty good but it was few and far between. The cinematography is solid but the script is mediocre and the acting is dodgy at best.
The earlier films in the franchise feature Robert McCall (Denzel Washington) taking out unflinching justice on the Russian Mafia, and a rouge CIA agent turned assassin. The third and final film features his war on the Italian Mafia. The three films stand pretty separated, with the only common factor being McCall himself.
The film starts with Italian crime lord Lorenzo Vitale (Bruno Bilotta) discovering that his henchmen had been brutally killed at a winery in Sicily. We discover that McCall, also known as The Equalizer, was the culprit of the killings. In a brutal fight scene, McCall finishes off Vitale’s henchmen and eventually, Vitale himself. In the battle, McCall is shot in his lower back and spends the rest of the movie being healed by one of the few bright spots in this movie, Enzo Arisio (played brilliantly by Remo Girone). The next hour and 15 minutes of the movie consist of McCall hobbling around on a cane doing random meaningless activities. Sometime throughout those 75 minutes, we learn that an Italian mafia family is importing drugs into Sicily and the CIA gets involved.
At the beginning of the climax, the mafia family burns down a local restaurant, and we get a solid scene of the town mourning what it lost. With McCall mostly healed, we embark on the brutal and bloody end of this movie, which consists of McCall brutally massacering most of the Italian mafia family and getting a pass from the CIA.
Denzel Washington delivers a decent performance, although he has multiple mind-bogglingly horrible line deliveries. Other than the previously mentioned Remo Girone, most of the side characters deliver horrendous performances, especially the main CIA characters. Their line delivery was awful as well and the actor and the character felt completely disconnected. The editing is downright atrocious and the plot is dull and convoluted. The film felt like a middle school boy got handed 70 million dollars and the rights to a blockbuster action franchise and tried his best. There are multiple long shots of McCall doing absolutely nothing interesting at all, as well as cuts to random scenic shots that then cut back to McCall’s adventures. The overall quality of the film felt very poor and cheap.
The most disappointing part about this film was that the parts of a successful film are clearly there. The action is phenomenal, there are some decent moments of cinematography and direction throughout, and the concept of the film isn’t horrible. If the studio had just invested more in writing and acting this could have come out as a pretty solid movie. But unfortunately, they didn’t.
Recent years have been pretty good for action franchises, with 2023’s Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part I and John Wick 4 being among the consensus best and Extraction 2 performing decently on Netflix. Not to mention 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick was one of the biggest movies of that year, but unfortunately, The Equalizer 3 will not be continuing that trend. The movie has received mixed reviews from critics, however, it made an impressive $42 million in its opening weekend against its projected $28 million. With the first movie in the franchise grossing $34 million in its opening weekend, and the sequel grossing $36 million, The Equalizer 3 is set to be the highest-earning film in the franchise. This film’s box office success is very surprising. There are a few reasons why it made this much money. First, this franchise has a cult following that would support and love this film no matter how good it is. Second, the movie was the lone large premiere on Labor Day weekend, so with almost nothing new to see in theaters, this film could’ve been viewers’ default option.
The majority of The Equalizer was enjoyable and The Equalizer 2 was mediocre, though the villain of that film was phenomenal. Overall, The Equalizer is far and away the best film in the franchise, followed by The Equalizer 2, with The Equalizer 3 settling easily into the bottom spot.
Clearly, The Equalizer 3 has set a low in quality for this year’s action franchise movies. The majority of the movie itself was not interesting in the least and the middle 75 minutes is maybe the most mind-numbing slog of any major film release this year.
