The Equalizer, film review: The plotting makes no sense whatsoever

(15) Dir. Antoine Fuqua; Starring: Denzel Washington, Chloë Grace Moretz, 128 mins

Teri (Chloe Grace Moretz) and McCall (Denzel Washington) walk across the bridge in Boston in Columbia Pictures' The Equalizer (Scott Garfield)

This isn’t a patch on Training Day, director Antoine Fuqua’s earlier collaboration with star Denzel Washington, but it’s still an effective thriller in a similar mould to Washington’s films with the late Tony Scott.

Washington is again playing the likeable blue-collar everyman, albeit this time one with a past as a special forces agent. Once you get over the utter absurdity of the idea that a trained assassin is working as an assistant at a Homebase-style DIY store, the film picks up momentum.

McCall (Washington), who spends his evenings reading Hemingway novels, is drawn into a war with Russian gangsters after he befriends a young woman (Chloë Grace Moretz) who they’ve forced into prostitution.

The plotting makes no sense whatsoever, but you can’t help but admire the ingenuity with which Fuqua uses the implements in the DIY store (everything from wire meshing to garden furniture) in the very violent, very stylish final-reel shoot-out.