"The Equalizer:" Style Without Surprises

Denzel Washington as the Zen-ish assassin-saint Robert McCall in "The Equalizer"

Bart, Mike and I went to see The Equalizer, a thriller based on the well-regarded Edward Woodward TV series from the 1980s about Robert McCall, a retired spy who relieves himself of some unspoken guilt by evening the odds for endangered underdogs .

Call this one “Jason Bourne meets Larry Crowne.” It’s stylishly filmed, explicitly violent and a tad too predictable. Denzel Washington is interesting, though, as a kind of assassin-saint whose enclosed, Zen-like existence includes a spartan apartment, an under-the-radar job at a Home Depot-like store and a stillness and inner balance that the bad guys are unwise to upset. 

Chloë Grace Moretz is appealing as the vulnerable young prostitute McCall protects and Antoine Fuqua’s intelligent direction keeps the eye engaged. Still, nothing in the film quite equals the frisson that the utterly convincing Woodward would inspire when he'd say, with clipped, English precision, "We have a problem, you and I. And you're not going to like what I do about it. Not One. Little. Bit."