They Think Its McCall Over

The Equalizer 3 is Denzel Washington's third turn as score leveller Robert McCall and it just might be the best one yet. At an hour and forty nine minutes its the trimmest of the vigilante's adventures and restricting the action (mostly) to a single Italian village gives proceedings a unique feel and bats away any sense of franchise fatigue.

After an opening that sees McCall badly wounded while brutalising some criminal types at a remote farm he ends up recuperating in an idyllic Italian village where he is suitably charmed by the locals who help him and has to decide how far he is willing to go to protect them from the vicious local mafia. In addition to giving the film a completely different look from the previous instalments, the change in setting allows for a change in focus. Taking on local criminals feels less grand than the facing off against government agents of The Equalizer 2 and, despite the stakes being less directly personal this time round, we see more of McCall as a person.

There are two stars of the show here. Firstly, Washington is (no surprise) great. You get doses of charm as well as introspection and you can see the development of the character since the first film. He also gets to be downright sinister at times, with a final act that depicts him more or less as a slasher villain. At one point there's even a gun banging nod to Detective Alonso.

The other big plus is the fictional village of Altamonte. Shot mostly along the Amalfi Coast, mainly in the real life medieval village of Atrani, the stunning backdrop makes the film look unbelievably slick and really sells the idea that the main character could settle down and find peace here. It also morphs into a fantastically brooding gothic setting for the film's darker moments. When Mr Equalizer is in full on angel of death mode you could almost be watching Dracula pick off his victims.

Things do take a little while to get going. McCall does a fair bit of humming and hawing before deciding to mete out retribution, meaning for a fair chunk of the runtime he is enjoying town life and verbally sparring with an American government agent while the gangsters roam around in black cars being all gangstery. Even then though, there is a charm to Denzel chilling in cafes and its just as well the villains meet such a violent end as they get to look so cool you'll be thinking maybe crime does pay.

All in all The Equalizer 3 turns out to be a fitting end (at time of writing) to the story of violent do-gooder Robert McCall and another successful team up for Washington and director Antoine Fuqua.

8 Snitches dropped from windows out of 10.

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