The Equalizer 3 (2023) — A perfect ending to an imperfect trilogy
“Nine seconds. That’s what I’ll give you to decide your fate. Nine seconds”
Fresh from obliterating a Russian Mafia crime syndicate single handed (as well as helping a fellow colleague at the DIY store at which he works become a security guard and saving the life of a would-be teenage singing sensation) and now moonlighting as a Lyft driver whilst tracking down the killer of a lifelong friend (and helping a Holocaust survivor recover a precious painting of his sister) everyone’s favourite CIA trained vigilante killer with ESP like supernatural abilities is back to end his own trilogy, and in the most pleasing of ways possible in the very best this three film series has to offer…
The deadly trail of Avenging Angel and Good Samaritan “Robert McCall” (Denzel Washington) leads him in Part 3 to a remote farmhouse and the opulent vineyards of Sicily in Italy, and after cautioning his young grandson to wait in the car and await his return, gangster “Lorenzo Vitale” (Bruno Bilotta) enters his own mansion style home to see for himself the human devastation Robert has inflicted upon his loyal lieutenants. Ordered by Robert to wait outside for his boss’ return, a lone guard now accompanies Lorenzo as he enters his home to be met with Robert’s first kill, and a guard laying in a pool of his own blood with a meat cleaver buried deep within the middle of his face. Next, and descending the stairs, three more bodies are found in the kitchen as the camera settles on a large kitchen knife, upright and buried deep in the kitchen table, blood still dripping onto the floor below, and as we descend still further in the property a fifth dead body, his brains splattered on the wall behind him. Into the basement now and to the left, two further dead bodies lay almost unseen in the shadows and to the right, there sits Robert, two remaining guards either side of him with their guns trained on him as he nonchalantly cleans his hands while lamenting softly “they should have let me in”.
Astonished, Lorenzo asks Robert why these two guards have been left alive but more importantly, why is he here, does he know what he’s dealing with being here in Sicily and does he know who he is and what he represents? “You took something that doesn’t belong to you” Robert replies softly, before continuing “I’m here to take it back” without a care in the world for who Lorenzo is, what he represents or the fact his two remaining guards have their guns locked and loaded and trained directly on him. In Italian, Lorenzo exclaims “You may be here. You may have found me” before Robert responds in Italian “We all end up where we’re supposed to be” as he now returns to English and in a faint whisper intones “Your guards are too close to me and shortly I’m going to execute you all”. Still whispering, Robert announces that Lorenzo and his guards have 9 seconds before their lives will end before with a close-up (and staple of the series), director Antoine Fuqua zooms in on Robert’s watch as it digitally counts towards 9.00. Quickly grabbing one of the guard’s guns and turning it on the other, killing him, he now stabs the muzzle of the gun through the other guard’s eye, executes the guard that accompanied Lorenzo into the basement before using the guard he killed by stabbing him in the eye with his own gun as a human shield against a spray of bullets from Lorenzo before shooting the gangster several times through the eye of his own guard!
With not a hint of emotion, Robert picks up a discarded shotgun through the haze of lingering gun smoke in the basement before adding to it by shooting a badly wounded and slowly crawling Lorenzo in the buttocks. As the gangster crawls to a nearby wine barrel, resting his back against it as he contemplates both scrambling for a gun and the end of his life, Robert kills him with a single shot through his right eye before stealing the keys to his vault from his belt. Returning to his chair in a basement now bathed in sunlight streaming through a window, Robert once again simply wipes his hands clean of blood as “THE EQUALIZER 3” is displayed in both a white and red blood font against a black background.
Exiting the property with a heavy looking rucksack and a handgun, Robert immediately warns Lorenzo’s grandson to “stop, stop, stop” in Italian and after establishing it’s just him and the young boy on the estate he warns him to “stay in the truck, son” as he makes one final check that no-one else is present before turning his back on the young boy and striding toward a car for his getaway. For the first time in the entire trilogy, Robert has made a mistake as the young boy now shoots him in the back with a rifle and shocked, Robert fires his handgun repeatedly in all directions to ward off his unseen attackers. Turning to face the boy, wounded but not yet fatally, the boy runs away as a stunned Robert collapses to the ground and realising his wounds will be fatal soon enough, places his handgun to his temple and fires.
But his gun is empty.
Fade to Black.
By far the best of the three films in the series and all directed by Antoine Fuqua in his fifth all time collaboration with Denzel Washington (Training Day, The Magnificent Seven, The Equalizer 1, 2 and 3) without spoiling the plot or indeed the ending, this film really does bring to the trilogy to an end in the most perfect manner possible and with that rarity of a catharsis, the good guys triumphing, and our favourite rogue assassin can now live in peace and at peace with himself in the quiet Italian hills I want to run away to and live forever and an Italian town so reminiscent of the one portrayed in The American from 2010 directed by Anton Corbijn. Dakota Fanning provides admiral support but this is Robert McCall’s film (and remember it’s “two C’s and two L’s”) and two decades on from Training Day, Denzel Washington and Antoine Fuqua have struck gold once more.
Thanks for reading. I hope this message in a bottle in The Matrix finds you well, prospering, and the right way up in an upside down world.
Whilst you’re here I may as well brag about the release of my trilogy of recently self-published books. Beautiful covers eh! As the title(s) would suggest, this is my life at the movies or at least from 1980 to 2024, and in volume 1 you’ll find 80 spoiler free appraisals of movies from debut filmmakers, 91 of the very best films appraised with love and absent of spoilers from 1990–2024 in volume 2, and in volume 3 you’ll find career “specials” on Paul Thomas Anderson and Quentin Tarantino together with the very best of the rest and another 87 spoiler free film reviews from 2001–2024.
All available in hardback and paperback and here are some handy links:
"A Life at the Movies Vol.1" - link to Amazon
"A Life at the Movies Vol.2" - link to Amazon
"A Life at the Movies Vol.3" - link to Amazon