Saving the day

The title character in The Equalizer (played by Denzel Washington) is an ex-CIA agent who sits alone in an all-night restaurant, reading classic literature and staying ready to serve as mentor to the young and avenging angel on behalf of the aggrieved.

In a way, Robert McCall (Washington) is a superhero in disguise—a solitary, upright, middle-aged guy in a flannel shirt, enjoying a backstreet retirement even though awake all night. He has no special costume and no special effects, except for the sleight-of-hand editing of the fight scenes that imply turbo-charged killer skills while failing to show just how a single warrior might actually pulverize a half-dozen thugs who have him surrounded in a locked room.

There’s a high body count throughout The Equalizer, with parts of the first half being particularly bloody. Director Antoine Fuqua eases up on the gory details in the second half and devotes a little more attention to various secondary characters.

The extended climactic sequence is a kind of lethal ballet, floating on Harry Gregson-Williams’ gravely, hypnotic musical score and serving up a grimly absurd catalog of all the home-improvement tools and other implements that might be used in place of guns while dispatching the villains swarming over a darkened big-box hardware store.

Chloë Grace Moretz and Johnny Skourtis have credible touches of pathos as the young folks McCall takes under his wing. Bill Pullman and Melissa Leo turn up, too briefly, on behalf of McCall’s back story. The best acting in the film is done by Washington, of course, and by Marton Csokas as the eerily understated supervillain who means to dispose of McCall.