Midweek Mention... The Equalizer

The Equalizer

Reegs: I have nearly picked this movie for us to do in the main

Sidey: thing.

Reegs: thing.

Dan: Before I picked it as,

Reegs: a mid weeker.

Dan: is a midweek. I'd never seen it before.

Reegs: All right.

Dan: So it was about time I thought I'll give it a go. I remember the earlier programs on TV when I was a

Sidey: Edward Woodward version. Yeah. Because this is the equalizer. We should point that out. Yeah.

Dan: And it was always that joke why Edward Woodward got these in his name, otherwise he'd be e

Reegs: e while we were

Dan: Yeah. Which was brilliant. And it was always kind of just on Sunday night, I think it, it pretty much on too late for me to stay up to watch the

Sidey: that whole Yeah, same. I remember my mum liking it. Yeah. And occasionally catching it if like,

Dan: the beginning,

Sidey: I literally would be in bed. I think it was that, you know, Was that young? Yeah. And I would, if I couldn't sleep, you know, come down, it would be on the tell.

And I'm kind of vaguely recall the look of it, but never, never watched

Dan: it. I think it played from like mid eighties to the late eighties.

Around that time

Sidey: he was a different kind of action star. You know? He was an older, gentle. Edward. Yeah. And they're certainly taken it in a different direction.

because

they don't look exactly alike. I

Dan: Well, I mean it is. It is the same thing as in a retired black ops agent with a mysterious pass using his skills to exact justice For those who find themselves in danger, that part is pretty much stayed the same.

And while this

Reegs: of his origin story though. This is how he goes from unknown to vigilante.

Dan: Well, you do find out that he's faked his own death in this. But I dunno if I'd call it an origin story because you don't get a lot going back for

Reegs: No, you don't.

You don't. No, you don't. Let's get on with the,

Dan: well the one that we're reviewing it is Denzel.

So he is playing Robert Mcca. And yeah, he's a, he's a hero for hire really, isn't he? Yeah,

Reegs: I may, for the purposes of this review, be gonna call him John Equalizer.

Dan: John Equalizer. Yeah.

Reegs: And we start with solemn music and a cityscape and an alarm blaring as we move through a window in a sparse apartment.

And we see the occupant is already up. As he's made his bed, he's shaving his head in the bathroom, making a blueberry smoothie, cleaning his new balances with a toothbrush, putting his dad's shirt and jeans on. Looking kind of just pretty normal.

Dan: Well, A word though, we can learn that this guy is. One of those people who has a routine every day and

Sidey: Very much

Dan: to it and everything is perfect.

It looks all set out. He's done this a million times before and yeah, military, it screams military when he is just getting ready is, is getting. Up and getting out

Reegs: but he's not military, Dan, because he goes, he gets on the metro and this movie has an admirable commitment to public transport, which I'll talk about later.

But he rides out to his work at a Hallmark, which is a kind of b and q

Sidey: type

Home Depot vibe.

Reegs: Home Depot. Yeah. He's popular, especially with the ladies. They make some little comment as he sass his way through the room and he goes for lunch with. Chunky friend Ralphie, who

Sidey: he's kind of mentoring him, Sandwich

Dan: Sandwich

Ralphie Johnny Urs, who was also in dying to kill. Nobody ever saw that. I had to really research hard to find

Sidey: anything. Yeah, he's kind of mentoring him and he's chastises him about the contents of his sandwich. He does, cause he's put. We would say crisps.

Reegs: Chips.

Sidey: Chips. Which is wrong. It's the wrong

Dan: either way.

His excuse of I just like the crunch wasn't, wasn't being bought

Sidey: a valid point though. It is a valid

Dan: by Nicole. Yeah. The crunch is good. I, I'd have gone for it,

Reegs: iceberg lettuce would do that job if, if that's what you want,

Dan: he's got one week to get down the weight to become security guard. So those crisps need cutting.

Reegs: But it's gentle encouragement. He, he reassures him it's progress, not perfection that

Sidey: he's looking for.

Yeah, that's right.

Dan: right.

Reegs: And we see him return home to his life. I think it's pretty clear. It's efficient, but lonely. And we see a little bit about the O C D. He suffers from, he checks his watch multiple times. We see he can't sleep, and this is part of his nighttime routine because he wraps up a tea bag in a napkin, grabs his book.

Of whatever he is reading and heads out to the diner

Dan: Oh man in the sea, I

Reegs: the Old Man in the Sea.

Sidey: It looks a lot like, well, I certainly got the vibe of that painting. Night

Dan: Yeah.

Reegs: yeah.

Sidey: The way, I dunno if they did that deliberately, cuz it would

Dan: a hundred percent. they

did

Sidey: I'm being a sna it'll probably pass quite a lot of people by, but I got it.

and he sets his book down in a particular way and he takes the cutlery and just gets rid of what he doesn't need and that goes aside and he's very efficient, just what he needs.

Dan: And the guy who works here comes over and puts down just a cup of hot water there. He puts his teabag in and. Strange, a few pleasantries and egos about reading up until a beautiful young woman comes in and we learn that it's Terry who is

Reegs: Chloe Grace Martz.

Sidey: Yeah.

Dan: Been in anything

Reegs: Yes Kick

ass I think is probably the one that you'd remember her from.

Sidey: there's a new sci-fi thing on prime new series that she's heading up, which I started actually

Reegs: The peripheral. Yeah. Any

Sidey: So far so good. Yeah. I mean, I'm like, Starting out, but it seems right.

Reegs: yeah. She, she chats, it's clear they've got some sort of preexisting relationship. She asks him about the book and some details about it. And he nags her about giving up refined sugar. It's bad for you. So he dolls out this little things of self-improvement. Anyway, she says her goodbyes. The guy behind the counter says, Forget about it, honey.

Go earn. You're living as a child prostitute.

Dan: Well, I, I like,

Reegs: see her get into a

Dan: like these kind of things though, just.

There would be a night. I like the idea of it cuz I don't sleep well at night. And the idea of going to a place about one o'clock the same time having a cup of tea, meeting a beautiful prostitute. Just general? No, that bit. Probably not, but maybe it will just be, you know.

Sidey: But he's

really

Dan: cool place.

Sidey: obviously, Looking out for people in, in the film that we, So he is got the, you know, his buddy at work who he's mentoring to become a security guard. That's his lifelong dream.

And just looking out for this girl, obviously she's incredibly vulnerable and in danger.

Reegs: He encourages her to, she's kind of possibly thinking about giving up the prostitute life to become a singer.

Sidey: Yes. She's got demo tape. She says, I've saved up enough for a. Like some kind of, you know, an eight track or something that, something that facilitates our recording, a demo.

They talk about that, but then she goes off into the night again to do what she's gotta do.

Dan: He takes her demo tape. He never listens to it.

does, He

Reegs: he tells her later that he's listened to it. Yeah. I don't think we ever

Dan: her that. Yeah.

Reegs: see him.

But there's a few things we don't see him do, but are implied.

Sidey: Of the things that we do see him do is he times things. So he has ocd but you also. Not only that, but he doubles down on timing how long things take. And that, for some reason is a thing.

Yeah.

Reegs: Yeah. I used to, I, I got well into like counting steps and like, yeah.

I've got like mild, you know, tendencies, I would say. So,

Dan: Well he tends to use his his timings to, to little more effect actually, because he, he walks in at one point. He's gone again to the, to the club. To the, to the restaurant.

Sorry, to the diner. And and this time the Tina's been

isn't it? Tina? Her name Terry. Sorry. She's been beeped on the horn outside. Come on, come

Sidey: She's got Shiner as well.

Dan: and yeah, she's, she's been beaten up and the night. Before, obviously when he saw her get into the limo with this guy, he wasn't really happy about it, Didn't say anything.

But this time you can see that she's,

Reegs: she's been beaten,

Sidey: Well, this guy, I think the pimp is actually there. Yeah. And she's having to go for some horrific fat guy in a limo. And it's completely, utterly Barron.

Reegs: Yeah he

brings her a donut from work and one night she comes to sit with him to eat it. She, she says, Sorry, am I breaking protocol by coming to sit with you? And it's like the first time, obviously, that they've come to share a little bit more about each other.

They, they properly introduce, Themselves and they fist bump, which Denzel Smarts from, which is funny because he notoriously has extremely strong handshake. Really? Like a finger like Yeah. Apparently Denzel is one of those who has like an absolute hand crushing, Okay. Handshake. Anyway he tells him, He tells her a real name and she says, My real name is Alina.

And she gives him a copy of the demo at this point. And then we find out that, you know, she says, Oh, I always can spot the widowed ones or whatever. And there's a big sadness in his eyes, isn't there? And he, and we read and we understand a bit more about his reading. He's reading the a hundred books that you should read before you die.

Cuz his wife got to 97 before she died. And he's on 90. And his most recent one that he's talking about is Don Kaho. And they talk about it as they walk along a bridge and they say they're goodnight. And then suddenly this limousine turns up it's sla, the assholes from earlier, and he's really annoyed and they argue and he hits her and Robert goes to intervene, but is told not to by Alina.

And then Kasla just thinks he's another John. So gives him his card and he is like, I've got plenty of girls come to the club, blah, blah, blah. And they burn off.

And Robert can't let it lie. And we see him brooding and waiting anxiously for her at the cafe, but she doesn't show up.

And then one day the diner owner tells her, Oh yeah, she's been beaten up. She's in the hospital and he goes over to see her. And she's really had quite a number

Sidey: she's, yeah, she's really been quite horrifically

Dan: beaten up bad. Yep. And so Robert wants to go and pay these Russian guys a visit and he goes to the club that the card's on. He walks in and it's one of those back rooms. All the mobsters at the back, the real heavies are in there. And one guy at a table.

He walked straight over to him and he offers him money to let the girl go.

He offers a 98,000

Reegs: 9,800,

Dan: and he says there, that's for our freedom. It doesn't get taken, it gets dismissed.

Sidey: He says that you can have her for a

Dan: for a month for that. She's a child. I can put her out as a virgin, he says, and get load more money

Sidey: off her.

Dan: So for him, business is. Prime in this girl.

And he tells Robert to fuck off really? And he says, You know, you've got balls coming in now, fuck

Reegs: And then he just starts rearranging the objects on his desk. And this was like watching this, I was like, Oh, I can't wait. This is gonna be great. So he starts oc ding the desk, and then as he goes to the door,

Dan: right, there's

Reegs: he opens and closes it three or four times and then, We get his kind of, his incredible equalizer, powers of noticing things.

This is really his

Sidey: basically.

he is seen this before in Sherlock Holmes, where he calculates everything in a nanosecond of how the fight will go down.

And he does exactly the same

Reegs: it's not necessarily, it's, it's noticing everything. So there's like a tattoo

Sidey: he sees, he sees everyone's gun there,

Reegs: there.

Who's got a weapon where the cork screw in the room is, all those sorts of things. And then in a glorious thing where he sort of stops his watch, I think he says 16 seconds, doesn't he? And then he just completely takes them all down quickly, brutally and efficiently. Stabby blunt force moves. One guy gets a cork screw through the bottom of his chin.

Is

Sidey: actually Slava, he takes out first. I think he, He twists the guy's arm to make him shoot. Yeah. And he takes them out through the neck.

But he's not dead. And then he, he dispatches the rest of them. Then he, he sit just sits next to him and he says, You've got about 30 seconds left. You're gonna, you're gonna bleed out and you're actually gonna suffocate. And we, we just get like the POV shot from savi. Yeah. It counts down. And he is, he's counting down and you get to the 32nd mark and he's a goner

Dan: goner.

Just says, I bet you wish should've taken that,

Sidey: That 9,800. Yeah.

Dan: been so much easier.

Reegs: And he goes home, he does apologize to him, and he goes home and he ceremonially and symbolically washes the blood off his hands.

And that night he sleeps like a fucking baby. The movie is very clear to point that out.

Yeah.

So yeah, a bit like nobody with, its sort of

slightly troubling theme of like a man rediscovering his passion for life through brutal violence. This is pretty much what's gonna happen in this.

Dan: Well, yeah, I think he had, he kind of promised himself he was gonna stay out of all this, but his, his streak of being a hero just wouldn't let him walk away from this.

Sidey: He is what he is, you know, can't escape his, his true self.

Dan: Yeah. So the, the Russian mafia are now not his friends because they believe actually they don't know, they're not his friend, but because they dunno he's done it.

They think this is two or three guys professionals all come in at once and

Reegs: They say it was a rival

Sidey: news is saying it's all gangland stuff, and he was only savi. As it turns out, it was only like a mid-tier, you know, local enforcer that, but the, the big boss man's coming over to sort this out. We can't have people musing in our turf, and so it

Reegs: So we have.

SaaS, I think his name is, He kind of looks like Kevin Spacey,

Sidey: Yeah. He does tattoos. Yeah.

Reegs: He turns up on a private jet. He's Russian. He wants to see the murder scene piece together. What happened? At first we're thinking is he Russian police? But then he also has noticing powers which is quite cool. He can reverse engineer that. It was just one guy and this is how we did it and all this stuff may, maybe you saw the movie, I don't

And then David Harbor turns.

Sidey: Yeah. Not very good, I don't think.

Reegs: Yeah. Anyway,

Dan: he's chief villain guy.

Sidey: He's, you know, Benko. There's, there's all that going on.

Reegs: Yeah. And he suspects the Irish. So Teddy and David Har go off to see Little John just before they go in. He warns him. Don't call him Little John, which seems like a real crazy move.

And the Irish guys say they didn't do it. And if they wanted to, they would, but they didn't. And then the situation starts to escalate when the Irish guy starts laying into Russians and badmouthing them. And then Teddy just smashes him with an ashtray. Viciously beats him. Harbor shoots the

Dan: team repeatedly.

Calling him Little John. He didn't like that. And and they realized that the stakes have, have gone up. And also the Russian here in charge realizes cuz he's getting a call from his boss saying, What the fuck is going on? I'm losing business. I'm losing 10 million a day while you are fucking around.

Sort this shit out. So it ranks the ramps, the pressure right up on him and he realizes he's gotta find call.

Reegs: Yeah,

Sidey: Yeah. He has a way of getting results, which is violent.

Dan: Yeah.

Sidey: So anyone that gets in the way is gonna be dealt with in that way.

We see two of the gang members. I can't if they Yeah. They were actually the Ben Benoff. They go and get the protection money from a local business.

Reegs: They fire bomb a local restaurant, which happens to be Ralphie's

Sidey: Yeah. Parents. Yeah.

Reegs: And

Dan: yeah, Ralphie can't go back to work anymore. He's gotta go.

Sidey: Well, Denzel notices the what's been used to trigger the fire, which I recognize from Good Fells. Yeah.

Reegs: Yeah.

And he waits for them after they've shaken them down. He shines a torch in their eyes, officers and all this stuff so they can't see him. And

Sidey: he gives them a thrashing.

Reegs: He does. Yeah.

Sidey: He's also,

Dan: go and

Reegs: he shows them, he's got video footage of them doing the shakedown on the phone and they tell him, You must have a death wish.

And he just takes them,

Sidey: Takes them out. Yeah. Yeah. Then not long after that, but Russian, Kevin Spacey knocks on the door of Denzel's apartment.

Reegs: man, I loved this scene. It's a great scene because first of all, it starts with John Equalizer noticing that Spacey's on his way up because his keys are Jing in the the air and he's like hovering at the door and when he opens it, the conversation seesaws back and forth.

You don't know exactly who's in charge.

Sidey: Yeah. And they don't know exactly what's going on. They know something's not right, but they don't know who's.

Kind of doing what? Yeah. And Denzel's like, Where's your id? You know, he gives him the ID line, Where's your id? And he is like, Who are you? How'd you find me? So they both know that they're not who they're supposed to be.

Reegs: be Well, he turns it on him. Does he? How did you find me? How did you find me? He keeps asking him.

Dan: And he goes, Oh, well, it's good to know that we know where you are now if we need you, and we can find you if we want to. And he, he wonders off.

Yeah. They're both kind of cage you with each other because they both realize.

Sidey: These

Dan: shouldn't know where. Yeah. I shouldn't be easy to find. And if this guy can find me, then he's someone as well.

Sidey: Yeah.

Reegs: Back at the home mark, it's just another normal day for Robert whose colleague has just had a gun pointed at her and told to register to open the register and Robert clears it out and he know, I think he thinks or I might do something and then he sees some

Sidey: There's a kid laughing coming through the doorway.

He was just about to probably out himself as being not quite who everyone thinks he is. Yeah.

Reegs: And the guy steals his colleague's mother's ring. And he lets him go. But as he goes, he sees, you know, oh, he sees the license plate, he sees the tattoos, he sees about a million clues as to who this guy could be, and basically off screen.

Then he does something horrendous to this guy, and then just brings back the

Sidey: he takes a lump hammer off the shelf. Yeah. And then you just see him cleaning it, putting it back on the shelf.

Reegs: on the shelf. Amazing. And he's literally walking through and put, like cleaning the blood off it, just to put it back on the rack.

It's

Dan: Cool As a cucumber.

Reegs: Yeah.

Dan: And he puts the ring back in the till. And the woman who had lost it had been robbed. She finds it again, happy ending there. He just goes around like a Robin Hood, just sorting people out, these little things.

Reegs: And now Teddy is like, well on his trail, but you can't really find anything out about him when he digs into his background.

And also Robert is doing something aing building something and sending emails and shit while Teddy plans when and where to take him. And at the diner, Robert is just sitting in his usual place reading his book and his huge construction worker guy

comes in and sits at the table. And as a movie viewer, you are sitting there thinking, Well, I know what this guy's gonna come and do, but.

Robert with his equalizer powers has noticed that he doesn't have dirt on his

Sidey: He says who he waiting for.

Reegs: Yeah. Is there anyone else or is it just you and me? Yeah,

it's

Dan: brilliant. Also read the script. Yeah. And there, there are guys waiting outside. A truck just pulls up in front to obscure it of you and that's the moment Robert comes and kicks this guy's ass. He's just a

Reegs: pretty fortunate timing that

Dan: Yeah.

Yeah. He, he makes his own luck though. He uses the opportunities. That's what you do when you train res

Reegs: and he turns off all the lights and the guys know that

Sidey: Yeah. With a knife. With a knife in the. In the plug outside. That's dangerous, isn't it?

Reegs: crazy.

But not when you're the

equalizer

Dan: on the edge, you know,

Reegs: And he turns off all the lights and the guys outside know that something's happened, but they dunno what it is. And then he comes striding out. Taking photos of them is brilliant. And then

Sidey: not intimidated, is he?

Reegs: No, not at all. And

Sidey: he,

Reegs: and they track him down some construction

Sidey: site

Well, he disappears for a bit. He goes, obviously Bill Pullman who's in this film.

Dan: That's right. Yeah. And Bill Pullman's wife is the, she's the head of Black Ops, who's the only person that knows that he's faked his own deaf.

Sidey: she does that. He didn't come to us for information. He came for permission

Wow. Loved it. Yeah.

Dan: Bill Pullman's, a her, her husband, who's just like a, a writer, he's

Sidey: paid for that writer.

Reegs: It's a good little fake out the movie cuz you see a meat

Sidey: Yeah. He jets doing first.

Reegs: who it's gonna be. But actually he sidelined as the husband and it's actually the wife and she's got all the pictures. She's the head of the former head of the agency. She's the one with pictures of her, with the president behind her and and she tells him about Teddy. He's the former head of the secret police sociopath with a business card she calls in. There's some great little lines like that. And the two police officers who worked in the gang have been found and they were executed mob style testicles, blown off and shoved down their throats.

Which is the way you wanted to

Dan: It's well you know, we've all got choices.

What happens next? Because it is all,

Reegs: Well, we get this,

Dan: Denzel is going on a bit of a mission now. He's is, is coming to a, to a head. He's been given a, a bit of permission, as you say, from the head of CIA here or

Reegs: well now he, he goes after David

Harbor Yeah.

Sidey: He does the old. Exhaust fu into the car. And he's That's

Dan: right. He's looking for information, He's looking for revenge and he, he manages to get the police officer who's the bank? Copper in the car. And does, does that suffocate him?

Sidey: Yeah, he manages to get a, a remote hooked up to his car so he can do the window up and down.

And he is just, Torturing him by nearly suffocating him, then giving him bit of air. Tell me what you

Dan: don't understand why. Didn't just put a, a boot through the window.

Reegs: He tried. He he absolutely tried. You saw him thump in the window and stuff, but it was made out of unbreakable equalizer, glass,

Dan: yeah, .

Reegs: But it's pretty sadistic, the torture. I mean, this is a fairly sadistic movie, but it it is pretty sadistic. And he talks about the ends justify the means, and the director and the screenwriter are really wearing their politics on their sleeves, aren't they?

And he goes off for a while and he leaves. And then, you know, you think, Oh God, is he actually gonna kill him? And then we cut to him, take him to this warehouse. He takes him right into the heart of gangster territory, pretending to be his cop buddy. And he basically just takes the guy Pushkin's operation down Forces Harbor to kind of do his job and then handcuffs him and call it in.

So the whole operation is taken down. He's served everything up. You know, all these gangsters with their hands on their head, a whole load of money.

Dan: He's done massive damage to Pushkin's operations, who's now really pissed off and yeah, they're throwing everything at him now.

Reegs: Yeah. And then the movie still allows us to enjoy just what a badass John Equalizer is cuz Teddy has dinner and Robert turns up, he's killed his partner that he was having dinner with

Dan: That was quite a good scene, actually

Reegs: his sunglasses with blood on

Dan: So like 30 seconds ago you had this big, hard guy with long hair and sunglasses saying Yeah. I'll get him, I'll kill him. And he goes, I'm just going to the toilet. And it's not him that comes back about, Yeah. Yeah. A few seconds later he's got these bloody glasses smashed up in front of him and he just lets him know.

Reegs: Well, he says to him, he says, basically, I'm, I'm gonna make you off an offer. And the offer is, I can either go through absolutely everybody, systematically taking everybody one by one until I get to the top. Or you can call your boss now and shut the whole thing down. That's the offer. And he's like, That's not much of an offer.

He's like, That's the only one you're gonna get. Yeah.

Dan: They just don't believe it's gonna happen. Riggs, But they do not have this guy's expertise and skills. Do

Sidey: they sell? No, not many. Do

Dan: not many do. I mean, he is going to equalize the fuck outta them.

Reegs: Yeah,

he, yeah, he does. And he's stolen harbor's secret stash of stuff, which includes a USB device with loads of like information

Sidey: Why do, why do bad guys keep them around? It seems reckless.

Reegs: Well, this was harbor though. This

Dan: was

Reegs: He said this,

Sidey: this

Reegs: You've been in it for 22 years, you've gotta get out or

Sidey: whatever,

Dan: Where the fuck is it? And he gets that out of him before. Yeah. He, he calls the, the cops on him. So he's got this new identity. It doesn't matter that it doesn't look like him, but he's got a load of information now that he can use and bribe.

Reegs: Well, and one of the places he finds is this great Eastern Depot thing, and he just goes and blows the whole fucking thing up and we get a proper walking away in Slowmo with a huge explosion behind him. Shot.

Sidey: Yeah, it's amazing.

Dan: Well, it is kind of amazing. It's kind of a little bit,

Reegs: It's just all amazing, isn't it?

Dan: he was never really gonna, you know, I dunno, I thought that scene for me was just a little bit extra O t t that

a few

Reegs: still to come

Dan: There are, there are. I shouldn't pick on that one.

Reegs: So anyway, Teddy now tries, he's kind of had, he's fed up of Robert Equalizer, like turning his life upside down.

And he goes after Ralphie and the rest of the normal people cuz they know about his hallmark life. And they call Robert and they tell him to cooperate. His men will kill them in 30 minutes. All the normies, unless you, unless he goes where he is told. This is the bit with the admirable con Commitment to

Sidey: I'll public transfer

Reegs: because he's given 30 minutes to get to somewhere.

Otherwise he's gonna kill everyone and he takes the fucking bus. He

Sidey: He was

Dan: wasn't he? Yeah, I thought that was cool.

Reegs: Amazing. I'm just gonna know. He obviously knew all the roots and that was the quickest way because

Dan: And he didn't want to be spotted there or they're coming in and out

Sidey: He can't

Reegs: So the movie kind of leads you to believe that he's going to this place where he is been told to go.

And then they are they coming down to his apartment and we get the fake out. They're not in the apartment. Oh no, that's happened earlier. He actually goes to the home up, That's where he goes. Yeah. And we set up for a sort of home alone style. Brutal

Dan: MacGyvers it all up, doesn't he? And he's got all kinds of You tools in there that he's

Reegs: it goes like a slasher movie.

Like he turns out the lights, it goes all dark. The guys are shitting themselves as they're walking around the home. Mar you know, you see him like getting some barbed wire and he gets it. He nooses one guy and like slings him up

Dan: to Ralph's with the hostages. He manages to get to him and. Set Ralphie on his way to be, cuz he has, but at this point become a security guard.

Maybe the world's worst cuz it's his first day and he is got this all going on. But he's, he's a tough gig and Ralphie does actually pull his weight and goes into getting all the people out. Little bit later on he does, yeah, he gets shot in the ass actually comes through and saves him because after a huge scene.

Denzel, you can't believe it, that he's rocked, but he is rocked and Ralph comes along just in time to save him. Show him what teams can do.

Yeah.

Reegs: But he's, he's kind of a one man team anyway, because he's taken out one guy with like a blow to an improvised blow torch thing and a drill to the back of the neck. Disgusting. And one of those things that they love to do in movies where a guy goes to investigate a room and then you suddenly realize he's left something in the microwave that

Sidey: blows.

Yeah, Yeah.

Reegs: the exact right time to kill everyone.

Good stuff. Good stuff. And then Teddy is just about to kill Ralph, it looks like. And then Robert turns up with a pump action nail gun. And finishes

Dan: a good finish actually, cuz he takes him down so slow that he. He knows he is been hit, but can't actually react to get him back. And every time he does, he just gives him another little jab and it takes him down like another limb just hits the floor.

And

Reegs: and then he execute like just callously

Dan: executes. Yeah. And Ralph's looking at this like, What the fuck This guy's just cuz he doesn't think he is gonna kill him, but he does. He just kills him there and walks off and leaves Ralphie to it.

Reegs: it. And I was already enjoying this movie, a great deal, but then the next scene just makes it for me because we get a sort of in Moscow three days

Sidey: later type thing, Yeah

Reegs: and we see Pushkin, who's the, we've not really seen him in the movie.

He's the head top of the chain and he's having a shower and they've shot him. So you can't see his pain

Sidey: Phil we were cheating, cheated out of a pen

Reegs: And, but the fucking equalizer just turns up in his bathroom with a gun. Warning him and they have this dialogue and then he's gone Batman's style. And then you see him walking out and he has slaughtered everybody in Pushkin's

Dan: just as he's calling for help, he turns on a tap or he rings the, the, the phone or something and it's all wired up to electrocut him.

Yeah. And, and that's how he does, He's done by his own hand.

Reegs: he, and so he's done what he said he was gonna do. He's literally walked through this entire organization.

Dan: Everything now, and he goes back and we, we meet up with Terry again. We, we see Alina

Sidey: He's anonymously given her some money for her to pursue her dreams rather than go banging fat guys all night. Yeah. So that's nice. That was

Dan: that that was a nice thing to do.

I

Reegs: set up a little email address where you can, if you need something equalized, you can call him and

Sidey: like a one man, a team.

Dan: Yeah, that's it. And, and somebody said, Oh, I'm in over my head and I'm feeling really, you know,

Sidey: Can you murder everyone that's given me a hard time? Yes.

Dan: Is one word, Emailed back and then it cuts to Equalizer two, which I watch immediately, almost immediately after this

Sidey: one

Dan: because, And which is just more the same. And part of the,

Reegs: has it got a shootout in like some boat, like a disused boat, boating area

Dan: It's it starts off in Turkey.

And there's, he's saving a. A child there and taken her back to her mother. I think she's been kidnapped.

Sidey: Anyway. Right. Well, anyway, this was fucking rad. Were it? Yeah.

Dan: First I've seen it and it was just, yeah, really, really watchable. I

Sidey: mean, on one hand it was kind of pretty generic, vigilant stuff.

On the other hand, I fucking loved it and it was great.

Reegs: Yeah. And, and it's kind of, it is a bit troubling because it's proper like White Night fantasy and like really like pretty dodgy politics and quite sadistic, brutal violence. But yeah, it's good fun.

Dan: It is good fun and yeah, easy to watch it. You know, there's been better things and more original things, but um

Reegs: Denzel's sort of taken,

Sidey: Yes. I, I was thinking kind of getting in notes of Taken whilst watching it. I watched this

Dan: Equalizer two is more of the same.

Sidey: I would imagine it wouldn't have been a huge departure. No. I watched this one with the Iron Chancellor and she really liked it as well. Did she?

Dan: Excellent. Yeah. I mean, I dunno why I avoided this for so long.

I think it was just because there was, at the time a lot of these kind of action films out and about, but this is probably one of the, the better ones of that

Reegs: because Denzel's got great charisma and he commands the screen and you know, clearly we all like that type of movie where you've got the guy who's one step ahead and you know, with the shadowy backstory and all that sort of stuff and it's shot well and it sort of takes it seriously enough.

But it also knows that it's kind of a B grade action movie as well. So

Sidey: yeah, he was like reluctant. I think he was contractually obliged to make this Really. Yeah. But then got on board and, and I think he was really impressed with the director even though it.

Reegs: it's Antoine Fuqua and he's done, I think that's how you pronounce it.

He did training day

Sidey: and Yes.

Reegs: a

Dan: well they got Oscar for that, didn't they?

Oscar nominated or something. So yeah, it wasn't quite as good as that. And with, with the same combo, but definitely watchable. And as I said, I was keen enough to go straight into another one

Sidey: I doubt the TV series was as good as this, but

Dan: Yeah, there's a queen Latifa, I dunno,

Sidey: I meant, I

Reegs: wasn't in the original.

Sidey: one

Dan: Oh, the Edward again.

I remember the theme tune

Reegs: do you, did they use any of it? Cuz I knew nothing about the equalizer, so I have no idea whether this was other than the like central premise, whether it like borrowed musical cues or

Sidey: it uses the same, it uses the same typeface at the end.

Nice

It does It genuinely

Reegs: fun enthusiasts will

Sidey: Do you want a watch stat?

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: His watch is the Santo core, all black, but the stopwatch display in the movie is not the same as the actual Santo core sold commercially. Oh, right.

Reegs: Oh, right. It was a special movie. One

Sidey: the commercial one combines Anter Barometer and a Compass with weather information.

They asked if this was a special edition or custom made watch for the movie. They just said it was probably digitally altered in Postproduction.

Reegs: What a colossal waste of time. Yeah. We don't ever get his backstory fully revealed to us in this one, do we? So they, they, you know, they, they hinted it, but you don't know exactly who he

Sidey: Black Ops. No

Reegs: agency and all that stuff, but

Dan: yeah, we never will

Sidey: exist Same thing as.

Jason born I think.

Reegs: Yeah. Same universe.