The Equalizer 3 review: Time for McCall to retire for good

For somebody who keeps saying he’s retired, Robert McCall (Denzel Washington) just can’t settle for a slower pace of life. In The Equalizer and its sequel, he swooped down like an avenging angel to defend two individuals in peril. He finds it even harder in The Equalizer 3 when an entire town needs his particular brand of protection. 

Perhaps he doesn’t take retirement that seriously. Sicily and Naples have a reputation that makes them sound like a busman’s holiday for somebody with years in law enforcement, yet that’s where he finds himself. 

But, as he keeps reminding anybody who’ll listen, “you end up where you belong.” He’s wounded while causing carnage in Sicily and, back on the mainland, is treated by the doctor in the small coastal town of Altamonte. Settling in as his lodger, McCall starts to feel at home, but he can’t help but pick up on a sinister undercurrent, caused by a group of young thugs ruled by a Naples gang boss. Nor can he help feeding his suspicions about their involvement in drug smuggling to a rookie CIA agent (Dakota Fanning). And when the locals attempt to stand up to their tormentors, their efforts just make things worse and there’s only one person who can save them. No prizes for guessing who.

It's a film that starts as it means to go on – at least a dozen corpses in various states of bloody disarray, a nasty case of cleaver in the face and a shoot-out that gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “human shield”. 

This time, however, director Antoine Fuqua ups the stakes, delivering a couple of hours that play out like a western/Godfather mash-up. The Wild West side of things has a whiff of Eastwood about it, the solitary avenger dressed in black who does his talking with his fists and assorted weapons. But it’s also something of a riff on one of his previous films, one which also starred Washington, and that’s The Magnificent Seven, with just a solitary man standing between the vulnerable townsfolk and their vicious tormentors.

The inevitable references to The Godfather are done with a heavy hand and those who love the enduring Mafia masterpiece will have a heavy heart watching them. They’re pale imitations – bloody violence running in parallel with religious ceremony (in this instance, in adjacent streets) and moments when the soundtrack threatens to soar Nino Rota-style – and the gang extorting money and terrorizing the locals are little more than stereotypes. Thankfully, McCall himself is more interesting, and much of that is down to Washington’s screen presence. His name on a cast list is always a selling point, regardless of the film itself, and there’s no better example of this than The Equalizer trilogy.

There’s a sense this time round that Fuqua is playing on his leading man being nearly ten years older than when he first resurrected the 1980s TV series. 

As McCall recovers from his injuries, he climbs the numerous steep steps in the coastal town to get back into shape. And, although he occasionally runs out of puff, it all seems to happen remarkably quickly. More noticeably, the fight scenes are filmed so that we never completely see him embroiled in doling out his own form of justice. A hand, maybe, sometimes a close-up, but rarely a full-blown body shot: despite the menace of his man in black appearance, he’s never really the invincible avenger he’s made out to be.   

Watchable but equally forgettable, The Equalizer 3 isn’t worthy of its leading man, yet the possibility of a fourth outing is still open to question. But the format feels tired and overly familiar, with the action sequences providing more winces than surprises, and even the stunningly beautiful Amalfi coast is little compensation. It’s hard to imagine McCall finding real peace anywhere, but now’s the time for him to retire. For good. 

The Equalizer 3 is in UK cinemas now and will land in the USA on Friday, September 1.