The Equalizer 3 movie review: Excessively Violent threequel

In Pic: stills from film

Film: The Equalizer 3
Cast: Denzel Washington, Dakota Fanning, Gaia Scodellaro, David Denman, Eugenio Mastrandrea, Remo Girone, Sonia Ammar, Daniele Perrone
Director: Antoine Fuqua
Rating: 2.5
Runtime: 109 min.

Denzel Washington returns as Robert McCall the Protector of his innocent friends, to fight against the Mafia on Italy's Amalfi coast. It's a vengeance call and events turn deadly when he discovers his friends are under the control of local crime bosses.

This third instalment of the Denzel Washington-starring action franchise is visually picturesque by way of its locations. It's also rather excessively violent and gory. Finding inventive ways to make a kill might be the most creative aspect of this film.

Fuqua's Washington starrers may have germinated from classic TV series involving a retired intelligence agent devoting himself to helping innocent people being victimized by criminals but that's where the similarity ends. The big-screen incarnation of the character dispatches his victims with a relish that might be way over-the-top for TV viewing. The opening sequence itself is a testament to that fact. The camera works its way across mutilated bodies of victims who've clearly been killed by a virtuoso of his craft. And the audience is forced to watch with macabre fascination as the camera lingers on each and every aspect of the kill. It's obvious these people were evil but did the audience have to relive that brutal experience like a voyeur?

McCall is forced to recuperate in the Amalfi coast after getting shot in the back. He is nursed back to health by an elderly doctor (Remo Girone), who keeps him at home, feeds him soup, and orders bed rest.

McCall gradually discovers an affinity for the good-hearted people of the village, including a kindly carabinieri (Eugenio Mastrandrea), a barista (Gaia Scodellaro), a fishmonger, and many others. His contentment though is short-lived. He finds that the entire town is being terrorized by a gang of rampaging Camorra thugs. And that's when the action begins to take shape…

In a brief respite from the fury, we see McCall mentoring a spy (Dakota Fanning). The film's vigilante formula may be a surefire way to earn medium Box-office success and even the best actors need that I guess. Washington may not have much of a performance to make here but the sheer force of his presence and powerful onscreen charisma makes him watchable as a highly-skilled avenger( and I am not talking Marvel here).

Washington pushes all the right buttons here. He savagely kills loathsome characters in a variety of inventive ways but by the time the bloody, gory carnage comes to an end you feel rather exhausted. Repetitive cinematic bloodlust is definitely not for the faint-hearted. And it's all accompanied by a musical score that makes abrasiveness its central theme. This may be the final edition of Fuqua's trilogy but it's certainly not anywhere close to his best. This effort is completely focused on getting the bloodied choreography to look impressive. But there's definitely no soul to it.