movie review the equalizer 2

Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, the equalizer 2.

Now streaming on:

Despite working in feature films for nearly 40 years, Denzel Washington has never until now appeared in a sequel to one of his films. Oh sure, he has done a number of films where one suspects that future installments might have been contemplated at some point but none have ever come to fruition. Now he has finally taken the sequel bait with “The Equalizer 2” and the only thing more baffling than the question of why none of his other movies got follow-ups is the question of why he would bring an end to that streak with something so completely useless.

Yes, the 2014 film, based on the mid-Eighties television show of the same name, was a box-office hit, but it was one of those hits that faded so quickly from the mind after it departed theaters that even those who professed to like it would be hard-pressed to actually remember anything about it. Luckily for them, that shouldn’t be a problem this time around because even the most easily satisfied fans of Washington will be unlikely to find much of anything in this sadistic, stupid and sloppy sequel.

The first film featured Washington as Robert McCall, a seemingly unassuming worker at a big box store who just happened to be an ex-CIA agent with a particular set of skills that he would deploy on anyone who crossed paths with himself or any of his vague acquaintances. At one point, I recall, the store was robbed and one of the thieves took a co-worker's cherished wedding ring. Luckily, thanks to his unique skill set (which I believe consisted of getting the license plate number of the getaway car), he figures out where the thief lives, visits him in the middle of the night with a hammer borrowed from the store stock and beats the guy with it before getting the ring back and returning it. His only true friends were Susan Plummer ( Melissa Leo ), a former agency colleague who is the only person who knows he is still alive, and her husband Brian ( Bill Pullman ). 

This time around, it seems that, like most people, McCall has been forced out of the retail industry and is now a Lyft driver. Happily, this still allows him to come across unsavory characters and brutally dispatch them as payment for their misdeeds. He even gets the occasional off-the-books freelance assignment from Susan—the opening sequence has him destroying a group of kidnappers on a train bound for Istanbul. For the most part, however, he seems to be in a bit of a lull as his current projects—trying to help an elderly Lyft customer ( Orson Bean ) recover a painting stolen from his family by the Nazis and mentoring a neighbor kid, Miles ( Ashton Sanders ) by encouraging him to paint a mural instead of dealing drugs—do not require much stabbing, shooting or neck-breaking. That all changes when Susan goes off to Belgium to look into the mysterious murder-suicide of a high-level agency contact and meets an ugly end. This makes things—Spoiler Alert!—personal, and McCall is soon on the case utilizing his extraordinary intuition and impeccable killing skills to track down Susan’s killers and wipe them out.

If the plot of “The Equalizer 2” sounds dull and perfunctory in the retelling, you cannot imagine how much more of a drag it is to watch it play out before your eyes. The screenplay by Richard Wenk is a joke, a lame collection of bland characters, nonsensical plotting and revenge-movie clichés that occasionally interrupt the carnage for the uninspired subplot involving McCall and the kid that appears to have been shoehorned into the proceedings in order to convince Washington that he was making something that wasn’t just another “Death Wish” clone. Neither Washington nor director Antoine Fuqua —whose previous collaborations have included the original “ The Equalizer ,” “ Training Day ” and the remake of “ The Magnificent Seven ”—seem willing to do much of anything more than simply go through the motions in exchange for their paychecks, it is the furthest thing from personal for them.

The only memorable aspect on hand in “The Equalizer 2” is also its least appetizing attribute—the relentless amount of sadistic violence on display. Yes, I am aware that a film along these lines pretty much requires a heaping helping of brutality throughout, but this one, like its predecessor, is so far beyond the pale that it comes closer to being nauseating than exciting. This is even more off-putting because if I remember the original TV show correctly, the character tended to get the best on criminals by using his intellect and would only switch to violence as a last resort. I can definitely see Washington playing a character like that successfully, but that aspect has been almost entirely dropped in order to squeeze in a few more neck-stabbings and face-spearings. The scene in which Melissa Leo’s character meets her demise is especially ugly, all the more so when you recall that in her previous film with Fuqua, “ Olympus Has Fallen ” (2013), she went through another extended scene in which she underwent a particularly brutal beating in what I sincerely hope is just a coincidence. Even if it is, Leo might want to consider not picking up the phone the next time he calls her.

“The Equalizer 2” is slickly made and largely appalling garbage but there is a good chance that it will do fairly well at the box office, thanks almost entirely to the enormous amount of goodwill that Washington has generated with moviegoers over the years. It is just too bad to see it squandered on something as nasty as this. There is no doubt, of course, that he can and will do better in the future with projects that make far better use of his talents. Of course, moviegoers can also do better in the future as well, especially if they avoid this one at all costs.

Peter Sobczynski

A moderately insightful critic, full-on Swiftie and all-around  bon vivant , Peter Sobczynski, in addition to his work at this site, is also a contributor to The Spool and can be heard weekly discussing new Blu-Ray releases on the Movie Madness podcast on the Now Playing network.

Now playing

Under the Bridge

Cristina escobar.

Nowhere Special

The Long Game

Simon Abrams

Irena's Vow

Christy lemire.

Monica Castillo

Film credits.

The Equalizer 2 (2018)

Denzel Washington as Robert McCall

Bill Pullman as Brian Plummer

Melissa Leo as Susan Plummer

Jonathan Scarfe as Resnick

Tamara Hickey as Grace

Pedro Pascal as Dave York

• Antoine Fuqua

Writer (based on the television series created by)

• Richard Lindheim
• Michael Sloan
• Richard Wenk

Cinematographer

• Oliver Wood
• Conrad Buff
• Harry Gregson-Williams

Latest blog posts

The 10 Most Anticipated Films of Cannes 2024

The Importance of Connections in Ryusuke Hamaguchi Films

Saving Film History One Frame at a Time: A Preview of Restored & Rediscovered Series at the Jacob Burns Film Center

The Beatles Were Never More Human Than in ‘Let It Be’

Advertisement

Supported by

Review: Denzel Washington Plays Judge, Jury and Executioner in ‘The Equalizer 2’

• Share full article

By Manohla Dargis

• July 19, 2018

Vengeance is mine, saith the lord, but that was before Denzel Washington stepped up. One of the reigning symbolic patriarchs of genre cinema — a fraternity that includes Clint Eastwood, Liam Neeson and the rather less-convincing Bruce Willis — Mr. Washington has been meting out extreme punishment for some time. He’s especially persuasive playing the kind of brutal redeemers who unblinkingly snuff out the murderous many to save a single innocent, which is exactly what he does at the start of “The Equalizer 2.”

The violently avenging hero is a durable American archetype, and denying it — and the indefensible, irresistible pleasures of watching primitive justice in action — is probably pointless at this stage in our history. For decades, the TV producer Dick Wolf, the diabolical genius behind the “ Law & Order ” franchise, has profited from the reassuring spectacle of professionals balancing (usually) the scales of justice. Although the holy spirit of Gregory Peck’s Atticus Finch hovers over many cinematic courtrooms, movies have often seemed more satisfying when they forget order and the law and serve up justice as cold (and blood-red) as possible.

We’re clearly not meant to worry about the niceties — legal, ethical, narrative — while watching “The Equalizer 2.” We are meant to watch, and to cheer. It’s forgivable if you don’t remember anything about the original (I didn’t), which blurs with all the other movies in which Mr. Washington has played characters who righteously or just summarily deliver death to the deserving: “The Magnificent Seven,” “The Book of Eli,” “Man on Fire” and so on. He has played his share of decent, morally assured and even bland characters, but, like so many of the greatest American male stars, violence becomes him.

In some ways, Mr. Washington plays the role once embodied by John Wayne, except that the fight now usually takes place in cities instead of the wild West of Hollywood’s own Manifest Destiny. Antoine Fuqua, the excitable director of “The Equalizer 2,” traces a line between his star and the Duke by alluding to one of the most famous shots in film history: Wayne framed in a doorway in “The Searchers,” the closing frontier stretched out behind him. The allusion is more ritualistic nod than anything else, and there’s little otherwise in “The Equalizer 2” that connects it to “The Searchers” other than the bluntly obvious: the near-mythic status of its stars and our very American love of violence.

However much separates these two movies — story, craft, technique, production context, the larger world, you name it — they both hinge on a familiar American defender-savior: the resolute, physically imposing, quite possibly deranged solitary older man who sets wrongs right. In each film, the hero roughly takes a younger, less-hardened man under his wing, giving the audience a surrogate, someone to cling to when things or the avenger get too weird or uncomfortably rough. That role here is played with glimmers of feeling by Ashton Sanders , the memorably delicate teenage protagonist of “Moonlight.”

In “The Equalizer 2,” Mr. Sanders plays Miles, a student and would-be artist who’s started to stray and who lives in the same homey Boston apartment complex as Mr. Washington’s character, Robert McCall. To his neighbors, McCall surely seems a good neighbor: reserved, helpful, friendly without being pushy. He watches over the building with a sharp eye — Mr. Fuqua has a serious ocular thing going on in this movie — and a secret arsenal. He draws from his stash now and again when he’s not quietly reading in his monastic apartment or driving for Lyft, picking up souls who, with one unruly exception, he benevolently observes in the rearview mirror.

Written by Richard Wenk (his name can be found on some of Mr. Washington’s earlier sanguineous vehicles), “The Equalizer 2” has a whole lot going on. Mostly, it has McCall and the characters who rotate around his divine radiance, notably Miles, who’s in need of a drastic course correction. (A believer in tough love, McCall gives him a stern talking-to delivered at gunpoint and a copy of Ta-Nehisi Coates ’s book “ Between the World and Me .”) There’s also Sam (Orson Bean), a shameless cliché in need of rescue and a rewrite, and Susan (an effective Melissa Leo), McCall’s only friend and a retired Central Intelligence Agency officer who still takes care of classified business.

The story skips from Turkey to Boston and elsewhere as McCall smoothly juggles crises, regularly pausing to break someone’s bones. Mr. Fuqua handles all this with his customary visual flamboyance, using different speeds, off-kilter angles and ophthalmological close-ups of McCall’s eyes to convey his near-mystical abilities. Mr. Washington is especially strong when he trusts his director, as he did with Tony Scott and does with Mr. Fuqua. Like all great actors, Mr. Washington commits to the performance, but every so often he also breathes fire, imbuing a scene with such shocking ferocity and bone-deep moral certitude that everything else falls blissfully away.

The Equalizer 2 Rated R for bone-crunching, bloody violence and a whole lotta guns. Running time: 2 hours.

Explore More in TV and Movies

Not sure what to watch next we can help.a.

Andy Serkis, the star of the earlier “Planet of the Apes” movies, and Owen Teague, the new lead, discuss the latest film in the franchise , “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes.”

The HBO series “The Sympathizer” is not just a good story, it’s a sharp piece of criticism on Vietnam war movies, our critic writes .

In “Dark Matter,” the new Apple TV+ techno-thriller, a portal to parallel realities allows people to visit new worlds and revisit their own past decisions .

The tennis movie “Challengers” comes to an abrupt stop midmatch, so we don’t know who won. Does that matter? Our critics have thoughts .

If you are overwhelmed by the endless options, don’t despair — we put together the best offerings   on Netflix , Max , Disney+ , Amazon Prime  and Hulu  to make choosing your next binge a little easier.

Sign up for our Watching newsletter  to get recommendations on the best films and TV shows to stream and watch, delivered to your inbox.

• Cast & crew
• User reviews

The Equalizer 2

Robert McCall serves an unflinching justice for the exploited and oppressed, but how far will he go when that is someone he loves? Robert McCall serves an unflinching justice for the exploited and oppressed, but how far will he go when that is someone he loves? Robert McCall serves an unflinching justice for the exploited and oppressed, but how far will he go when that is someone he loves?

• Antoine Fuqua
• Richard Wenk
• Michael Sloan
• Richard Lindheim
• Denzel Washington
• Pedro Pascal
• Ashton Sanders
• 842 User reviews
• 247 Critic reviews
• 50 Metascore
• 1 win & 4 nominations

• Robert McCall

• Miles Whittaker

• Sam Rubinstein

• Brian Plummer

• Susan Plummer

• (as Garrett A. Golden)

• Turkish Father

• Dining Car Porter

• Nine Year Old Braelick Girl
• (as Rhys Cote)

• Grace Braelick

• Grace Braelick's Lawyer
• Bookstore Nerd
• Mr. Calbert (Belgian Husband)

• Jana Calbert (Belgian Wife)
• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

Denzel Washington on His Best-Known Roles

More like this

Did you know

• Trivia After over fifty-five film and television credits, this was Denzel Washington 's first sequel.
• Goofs Clearly visible during the final 15 minutes of film, during the final shootout in a hurricane, David is on the tower, exposed to the hurricane rains and winds, yet never gets wet. McCall does not get wet either even though he runs through the hurricane wind and rain for the final 15 minutes. The three other bad guys are clearly soaking wet as they seek McCall out, but Dave and McCall never are wet at any time.

Robert McCall : There are two kinds of pain in this world. The pain that hurts, the pain that alters.

[In Turkish]

Robert McCall : Today, you get to choose.

• an already broken arm being further twisted
• two knives being pulled upwards in a man's body at the end of a stabbing
• a gory shot of insides hanging out after an explosion
• a man's spine being severed before he's thrown off a building
• Connections Featured in Chris Stuckmann Movie Reviews: The Equilizer 2 (2018)
• Soundtracks Jah Music Written by Claude A. Lewis Performed by Jah Eye Courtesy of Unity Works & Explosive Records By arrangement with Ford Music Services

User reviews 842

• bastille-852-731547
• Jul 19, 2018
• How long is The Equalizer 2? Powered by Alexa
• What is "The Equalizer 2" about?
• Why did the Equalizer harass those gentleman in the suits?
• July 20, 2018 (United States)
• United States
• Official Facebook
• Official Twitter
• Thiện Ác Đối Đầu 2
• Lynn, Massachusetts, USA
• Columbia Pictures
• Escape Artists
• Hill District Media
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• $62,000,000 (estimated)
• $102,084,362
• $36,011,640
• Jul 22, 2018
• $190,400,157

Technical specs

• Runtime 2 hours 1 minute
• Dolby Surround 7.1
• Dolby Digital
• Dolby Atmos
• IMAX 6-Track

Related news

Contribute to this page.

• IMDb Answers: Help fill gaps in our data
• Learn more about contributing

More to explore

Recently viewed

The Definitive Voice of Entertainment News

Subscribe for full access to The Hollywood Reporter

site categories

‘the equalizer 2’: film review.

Denzel Washington reprises his role as a retired government operative who is drawn back into action in 'The Equalizer 2.'

By Todd McCarthy

Todd McCarthy

• Share this article on Facebook
• Share this article on Twitter
• Share this article on Flipboard
• Share this article on Email
• Show additional share options
• Share this article on Linkedin
• Share this article on Pinit
• Share this article on Reddit
• Share this article on Tumblr
• Share this article on Whatsapp
• Share this article on Print
• Share this article on Comment

What made the original  Equalizer  special in the realm of revenge action thrillers was the imperturbable zen attitude of Denzel Washington ‘s Robert McCall, a retired CIA agent living simply among common people, reading worthy books and roused to action only when there were serious wrongs to be righted on behalf of people unable to help themselves. The savior quality, along with its concomitant humor, carries over into this follow-up, the first sequel Washington has ever done, but this distinctive character is gradually subsumed by familiar genre imperatives that eventually make McCall seem less special and singular than he did on first exposure in 2014. The initial entry pulled in $192 million worldwide, and this one, which looks considerably more expensive than the original, should do roughly the same.

Related Stories

Spike lee and giancarlo esposito reunite for fiat campaign, talk denzel washington, 'megalopolis' and ai, denzel washington set for retrospective at american black film festival (exclusive).

The great appeal of McCall the first time around was his profile as a lone samurai, a societal outlier of regular habits, a man with an ascetic lifestyle and a straightforward dedication to helping those in need. He exhibited no religious affiliation, but his monk-like calm was unmistakable, making it all the more exciting when he was finally roused to action.

Release date: Jul 20, 2018

That the old veteran is still at the top of his game is apparent here in the Bond-like opening, in which McCall, bearded and dressed in native garb aboard a speeding train in Turkey and conspicuously shown to be reading Ta-Nehisi Coates’  Between the World and Me, enters the club car and in short order dispatches three swarthy thugs. The incident feels entirely arbitrary but serves as a reminder that McCall was designed to fulfill all manner of righteous revenge fantasies and is still able to deliver.

Back home in Boston, McCall has moved into a more commodious, somewhat less spartan apartment than he occupied four years ago. He now works as a Lyft driver and seems more outwardly dedicated to those in need of a helping hand, including a Holocaust survivor (Orson Bean) and a local kid, Miles (Ashton Sanders, of  Moonlight   and the upcoming  Native Son , in which he plays Bigger Thomas), who he sees getting sucked in by the wrong crowd.

He also remains close to his former CIA handler, Susan Plummer ( Melissa Leo , percolating buoyantly), who knew his late wife, to whom McCall remains reverentially true. The purity of mind and pared-down simplicity of his life are what mark the man as a special character; these days, anyone — from little kids to old-timers wondrously made to look younger — can be an action star, but no others come off like an urban contemporary Siddhartha.

According to  The Equalizer 2 ,  the place not to be theses days is Brussels, where repeated sets of multiple murders of upscale officials at their homes are being committed by some ruthless commandos of unknown origin. The fact that one set of victims includes Susan plunges McCall into action, all the more so when it becomes evident that he’s on the hit list as well.

Along with the fact that McCall has by now moved on from Coates to reading Proust, the man’s meditative, cloistered side essentially disappears at this point, which turns him into an essentially conventional action hero. Having set young Miles on the right path by getting him to spruce up their apartment building rather than hanging with gangsta types, McCall from here on dedicates himself to tracking down the evident killer, none other than his old partner Dave ( Pedro Pascal , of TV’s  Narcos ). From here on, we could as easily be watching Dirty Harry, Rambo or John McClane, so generic do McCall’s actions become at this point.

In fact, the grand finale showcasing the ultimate mano a mano between McCall and Dave comes off as both predictable and fundamentally preposterous, no matter how unusual its location, that being a coastal Massachusetts town (actually Brant Rock, an hour south of Boston) during a hurricane-force storm. Screenwriter Richard Wenk and director Antoine Fuqua obviously thought long and hard to come up with a setting for their climax that might seem fresh, but in fact it’s silly; why would either of these foes choose to fight it out under these conditions? It all seems too clever even for McCall’s unusual mind and simply too stupid for the shrewd Dave, who could easily have retreated and lived to fight another day.

And the long, wet, windblown finale also contains at least one big continuity blunder: All the electrical power in the community has been knocked out by the fierce winds and yet at one point McCall is able to switch on two big fans to blow some sight-obscuring powder in his adversary’s direction.

Even though the evil impulses of the villains feel rote and arbitrary,  The Equalizer 2  is not without its pleasures. With his pared-down lifestyle, clear view of priorities and extreme skill at what he does, McCall remains a welcome and ingratiating character, an unusual action figure who Washington imbues with calm, grace and intelligence, a man whose downtime is actually more rewarding than when he’s once again, but inevitably, called back into battle.

Production companies: Columbia Pictures, Escape Artists, Zhiv, Mace Neufeld Productions Distributor: Sony Cast: Denzel Washington, Pedro Pascal, Ashton Sanders, Bill Pullman , Melissa Leo, Jonathan Scarfe, Orson Bean Director: Antoine Fuqua Screenwriter: Richard Wenk, based on the television series created by Michael Sloan, Richard Lindheim Producers: Todd Black, Jason Blumenthal, Denzel Washington, Antoine Fuqua, Alex Siskin, Steve Tisch, Mace Neufeld, Tony Eldridge, Michael Sloan Executive producers: Molly Allen, David Bloomfield Director of photography: Oliver Wood Production designer: Naomi Shohan Costume designer: Jenny Gering Editor: Conrad Buff Music: Harry Gregson-Williams Casting: Lindsay Graham, Mary Vernieu

Rated R, 121 minutes

THR Newsletters

Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every day

More from The Hollywood Reporter

John krasinski on getting bradley cooper, george clooney, ryan reynolds to join ‘if’: “most yeses of my career”, box office: ‘kingdom of the planet of the apes’ hitting target with $52m-$56m u.s. opening, ‘the mummy’ at 25: director on the enduring hit, brendan fraser’s mishap and the tom cruise reboot, ‘star wars’: sigourney weaver in talks to join ‘the mandalorian & grogu’, ’28 years later’ set for 2025 release date from sony, ‘the fall guy’ writer drew pearce talks that a-list cameo and the ‘mission: impossible’ death he considered.

Film Review: Denzel Washington in ‘The Equalizer 2’

In his first sequel, Denzel Washington plays a ruthless vigilante with good intentions — though even those can't save this nasty thriller.

By Peter Debruge

Peter Debruge

Chief Film Critic

• ‘The Three Musketeers – Part II: Milady’ Review: Eva Green Surprises in French Blockbuster’s Less-Than-Faithful Finale 3 weeks ago
• ‘The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare’ Review: Henry Cavill Leads a Pack of Inglorious Rogues in Guy Ritchie’s Spirited WWII Coup 4 weeks ago
• ‘Challengers’ Review: Zendaya and Company Smash the Sports-Movie Mold in Luca Guadagnino’s Tennis Scorcher 4 weeks ago

It’s a credit to Denzel Washington ’s career choices that he’s gone four decades without making a single sequel. That’s not to say that breaking the pattern with “ The Equalizer 2 ” means he’s finally sold out (plenty of stars rely on franchises to balance out riskier one-off ventures), but nor does this particular project demonstrate much of a reason to justify wanting to return to the character of Robert McCall, other than a chance to work with “Training Day” director Antoine Fuqua for the fourth time.

Thing is, until Part 2 came along to top it, “The Equalizer” was a uniquely unpleasant action movie: a brutal, patience-testing bloodbath in which bad guys did nasty things to blue-collar Boston folks while dirty (white) cops looked the other way, only to have a single concerned citizen stand up and give them a taste of their own medicine. McCall politely knocked on the Russian mafia’s front door, offered to buy a battered hooker’s freedom, and when they refused the offer, rammed a shot glass into one guy’s eye socket and a corkscrew into another’s lower jaw. Later, he hanged a thug with barbed wire and shot another five times with a nail gun. Fun times.

“The Equalizer” climaxed with its villain screaming an incredulous, “Who arrrre you?” before taking a fatal blow to the neck. It was a fair question. Neither Fuqua nor screenwriter Richard Wenk (also back on this film) had bothered to provide much in the way of backstory for the character, an erstwhile government assassin turned vigilante. We could see that McCall had lost his wife, that he was paging his way through 100 essential novels in her memory, and that the only two people he could trust were a folksy couple played by Bill Pullman and Melissa Leo who had some connection to his shadowy past.

Popular on Variety

Whereas the 2014 movie served as an odd sort of origin story — the kind whose violent antihero had reinvented himself at least once before — “The Equalizer 2” does an unusual thing: Rather than power forward on the assumption that we know and understand this character, it circles back and gives McCall the chance to delve into the life he’d left behind, revealing details of his past that were frankly more interesting when left to the imagination (a testament to Washington’s ability to convey a tortured personal history without needing to provide the specifics).

It opens with a rescue mission somewhere near the Turkish border, as McCall, disguised as a devout Muslim and perusing a book too new to have made his wife’s required-reading list (Ta-Nehisi Coates’ “Between the World and Me”), recovers a young girl kidnapped from his neighborhood. The Equalizer’s trademark is to click the stopwatch on his wrist and time how long it takes to dispatch three or four nasty henchmen. The answer: usually less than 30 seconds, which fly by in a blur, as he uses whatever objects happen to be within arm’s reach to seriously mutilate his adversaries.

In a rare show of restraint, Fuqua opts not to show what McCall does to the kidnapper himself, instead letting audiences imagine what the Equalizer meant when he said, “There are two types of pain in this world: pain that hurts and pain that alters.” Presumably, for McCall, losing his wife fell into the latter category. Where once he killed because his superiors told him to, now he answers only to his own conscience. He lives in a dumpy apartment and drives a Lyft, doing helpful errands for his favorite neighbors — like rescuing cats from trees and chauffeuring an elderly Holocaust survivor (Orson Bean) between the hospital and his retirement home.

But when some creepy rich kids call a Lyft to dispose of a battered young woman they evidently raped and disrespected, McCall pays a visit to their room, beeps his watch, and faster than you can say, “Time’s up,” has broken their wrists and slashed their faces with Daddy’s Platinum card. It’s gratifying to see such chauvinism checked, but nothing much makes sense in “The Equalizer 2” (least of all the decision to stage the finale in an abandoned seaside town as a hurricane rages all around).

If McCall’s M.O. is not taking credit for his deeds, doesn’t beating up Lyft customers sorta blow his cover? How did he find the money to track down that other creep on Turkish Railways? And where, after fighting off another disgruntled Lyft rider (this one doesn’t even bother to leave a bad review, but instead whips out a giant knife in the backseat), does he find a car to replace the one he set on fire?

Judging by the ponderous tone and pace, Fuqua thinks he’s making high art (likely aspiring to something existential like Jean-Pierre Melville’s “Le Samouraï”), but this is a grisly exploitation movie at best. Early on, he forces us to witness a harrowing execution in a posh Brussels apartment, where three sadists stage a murder-suicide for no apparent reason. The scene was clearly designed to score Fuqua points for sheer ruthlessness, later repeated in a tough-to-watch assault on Leo’s character in which two tweakers slam her around a hotel room (oddly, Pullman is rescued and promptly forgotten before the finale). Surely audiences deserve some kind of explanation for such nightmare-inducing imagery. The closest we ever get is a long conversation between McCall and his ex-partner (Pedro Pascal, a Chilean actor with the blunt-nosed profile of a young Marlon Brando) in which the pair hash out all that is wrong with the world.

And yet, amid such cynicism, McCall stops to coach Miles (Ashton Sanders), an at-risk teenager from his building, on making the right life choices. He hires the kid to repaint a mural defaced by graffiti (someone has scrawled the word “GANG” in bright red letters) and insists that he read Coates’ book (good advice for the movie’s target audience as well). The Equalizer is an enigma, simultaneously moralistic and homicidal. In order to save the lives of those on the margins, he is willing to snuff out those who endanger them. One thing’s for certain: You’ll never look at your Lyft driver the same way again.

Reviewed at AMC Century City, Los Angeles, July 16, 2018. MPAA Rating: R. Running time: 120 MIN.

• Production: A Sony release of a Columbia Pictures presentation of an Escape Artists, Zhiv, Mace Neufeld production. Producers: Todd Black, Jason Blumenthal, Denzel Washington, Antoine Fuqua, Alex Siskin, Steve Tisch, Mace Neufeld, Tony Eldridge, Michael Sloan. Executive producers: Molly Allen, David Bloomfield.
• Crew: Director: Antoine Fuqua. Screenplay: Richard Wenk, based on the television series created by Michael Sloan, Richard Lindheim. Camera (color, widescreen): Oliver Wood. Editor: Conrad Buff. Music: Harry Gregson-Williams.
• With: Denzel Washington, Pedro Pascal, Ashton Sanders, Bill Pullman, Melissa Leo.

More From Our Brands

Trump may owe more than $100 million in back taxes: report, a manhattan mansion by architect robert d. kohn hits the market for $13 million, purdue to turn final four court panels into collectibles, the best loofahs and body scrubbers, according to dermatologists, all american twist: taye diggs to return in upcoming season 6 episode, verify it's you, please log in.

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Trouble logging in?

By continuing, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes.

Email not verified

Let's keep in touch.

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

• Upcoming Movies and TV shows
• Trivia & Rotten Tomatoes Podcast
• Media News + More

By clicking "Sign Me Up," you are agreeing to receive occasional emails and communications from Fandango Media (Fandango, Vudu, and Rotten Tomatoes) and consenting to Fandango's Privacy Policy and Terms and Policies . Please allow 10 business days for your account to reflect your preferences.

OK, got it!

Movies / TV

No results found.

• What's the Tomatometer®?
• Login/signup

Movies in theaters

• Opening this week
• Top box office
• Coming soon to theaters
• Certified fresh movies

Movies at home

• Fandango at Home
• Netflix streaming
• Prime Video
• Most popular streaming movies
• What to Watch New

Certified fresh picks

• Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes Link to Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
• The Fall Guy Link to The Fall Guy
• The Last Stop in Yuma County Link to The Last Stop in Yuma County

New TV Tonight

• Doctor Who: Season 1
• Blood of Zeus: Season 2
• Pretty Little Liars: Summer School: Season 2
• Black Twitter: A People's History: Season 1
• Dark Matter: Season 1
• Bodkin: Season 1
• Hollywood Con Queen: Season 1
• The Chi: Season 6
• Reginald the Vampire: Season 2
• Love Undercover: Season 1

Most Popular TV on RT

• Baby Reindeer: Season 1
• A Man in Full: Season 1
• Fallout: Season 1
• Hacks: Season 3
• The Sympathizer: Season 1
• Them: Season 2
• Dead Boy Detectives: Season 1
• X-Men '97: Season 1
• Best TV Shows
• Most Popular TV
• TV & Streaming News

Certified fresh pick

• Doctor Who: Season 1 Link to Doctor Who: Season 1
• All-Time Lists
• Binge Guide
• Comics on TV
• Five Favorite Films
• Video Interviews
• Weekend Box Office
• Weekly Ketchup
• What to Watch

100 Best Movies on Tubi (May 2024)

The Best Shows on Amazon Prime Video to Watch Right Now (May 2024)

Asian-American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander Heritage

What to Watch: In Theaters and On Streaming

Rotten Tomatoes Predicts the 2024 Emmy Nominations

8 Things To Know About The New Season Of Doctor Who

• Trending on RT
• Furiosa First Reactions
• Streaming in May
• New Doctor Who
• Planet of the Apes Reviews

The Equalizer 2 Reviews

Some may find the ending acceptable but unfortunately it hurt the film considerably for me.

Full Review | Original Score: C+ | May 9, 2024

It falters when it comes to action, especially during a climax that takes place in the middle of a storm, and where the violence becomes murky and hard to enjoy. “The Equalizer 2” never reaches the same level as its predecessor. Full review in Spanish.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 17, 2023

Denzel is always immensely watchable and the hurricane-set finale is packed with suspense, but overall the movie is dampened by an unfocused and predictable plot.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 1, 2023

Those random bits of setup that are thrown into the early parts of the film feel almost entirely gratuitous and do nothing but distract from what’s going on around them, but they actually get far more irritating once they start to pay off.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 31, 2023

Washington is such a joy to watch. The seasoned star hasn’t lost a bit of his allure, and his ability to carry a film is unmatched.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 20, 2022

This twisty sequel takes the temperature and weight of the cold lead hammer that is Denzel and heats it with anger and stakes to match the hot lead being shot around him.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 14, 2022

The Equalizer 2 leaves the viewer with a boredom hangover - a cloudy funk that lingers well after the credits roll.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/4 | Mar 11, 2022

A step up from the original, raising the stakes and making an effort that's not just watchable, it's occasionally even enjoyable.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Aug 21, 2021

An enjoyable action-packed film with terrific pacing; the two-hour runtime flies right on by.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5 / 5 | Jun 24, 2021

A solidly entertaining popcorn flick with pretensions of bringing Shakespearean level of pathos to the tale of vengeance.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 28, 2021

The Equalizer 2 is another blockbuster to join all the other summer sequels in box office heaven.

Full Review | Jan 29, 2021

The revelations are entirely predictable and the assemblage of villains serve only as fodder for ruthless slaughtering.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/10 | Dec 5, 2020

I can't tell you to pay $12 dollars to see this movie, not with all the other goods currently in theaters.

Full Review | Nov 10, 2020

A better film because Denzel's in it.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4.0 | Sep 7, 2020

The Equalizer 2 lectures its audience about the importance of life itself -- and then pulls a gun on whatever importance might exist.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 25, 2020

Fuqua and company trade in the vicious streak that made the first film so gleefully mean for ho-hum tedium.

Full Review | Original Score: C- | Jun 30, 2020

There are probably one or two too many subplots that don't really amount to much, but any excuse to see this actor try on different hats as the same character is pretty exciting. This is a mild recommendation.

Full Review | Jun 18, 2020

Fuqua's direction is slick but generally uninspired.

Full Review | Mar 4, 2020

This might not be a great piece of awards-bait filmmaking but it is a rather enjoyable movie.

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Jan 10, 2020

While not reinventing the wheel of modern-day action thrillers, if viewers liked the first film, this new outing may provide similar feelings once the end credits roll.

Full Review | Original Score: 7.5/10 | Oct 29, 2019

Common Sense Media

Movie & TV reviews for parents

• For Parents
• For Educators
• Our Work and Impact

Or browse by category:

• Get the app
• Movie Reviews
• Best Movie Lists
• Best Movies on Netflix, Disney+, and More

Common Sense Selections for Movies

50 Modern Movies All Kids Should Watch Before They're 12

• Best TV Lists
• Best TV Shows on Netflix, Disney+, and More
• Common Sense Selections for TV
• Video Reviews of TV Shows

Best Kids' Shows on Disney+

Best Kids' TV Shows on Netflix

• Book Reviews
• Best Book Lists
• Common Sense Selections for Books

8 Tips for Getting Kids Hooked on Books

50 Books All Kids Should Read Before They're 12

• Game Reviews
• Best Game Lists

Common Sense Selections for Games

• Video Reviews of Games

Nintendo Switch Games for Family Fun

• Podcast Reviews
• Best Podcast Lists

Common Sense Selections for Podcasts

Parents' Guide to Podcasts

• App Reviews
• Best App Lists

Social Networking for Teens

Gun-Free Action Game Apps

Reviews for AI Apps and Tools

• YouTube Channel Reviews
• YouTube Kids Channels by Topic

Parents' Ultimate Guide to YouTube Kids

YouTube Kids Channels for Gamers

• Preschoolers (2-4)
• Little Kids (5-7)
• Big Kids (8-9)
• Pre-Teens (10-12)
• Teens (13+)
• Screen Time
• Social Media
• Online Safety
• Identity and Community

Explaining the News to Our Kids

• Family Tech Planners
• Digital Skills
• All Articles
• Latino Culture
• Black Voices
• Asian Stories
• Native Narratives
• LGBTQ+ Pride
• Best of Diverse Representation List

Celebrating Black History Month

Movies and TV Shows with Arab Leads

Celebrate Hip-Hop's 50th Anniversary

The equalizer 2, common sense media reviewers.

Sequel offers more stylish, inventive, violent action.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Shows the benefits of listening to other people an

McCall tries to see the good in people and help ot

Guns and shooting (sometimes point-blank), knives

Flirting and innuendo.

Sporadic uses of "f--k," the "N" word, "s--t," "so

Ride service Lyft is featured heavily. Catchphrase

Scene involving drug dealers. Brief use of hard dr

Parents need to know that The Equalizer 2 is the sequel to Denzel Washington's 2014 action film The Equalizer and is loosely based on the same-named 1980s TV series. Like its predecessor, it's very violent, but the appealing main character and the inventive action scenes will make it entertaining for…

Positive Messages

Shows the benefits of listening to other people and possibly encouraging them to pursue their dreams, even when the world seems to be against them. At the same time, the movie seems to admire swift, merciless justice for wrongdoers, especially those who betray or sell out their fellow man.

Positive Role Models

McCall tries to see the good in people and help others when he can, but he's also merciless with those he judges to be lacking. He's highly skilled and wise.

Violence & Scariness

Guns and shooting (sometimes point-blank), knives and stabbing. Threatening with guns. Blood spatters and bloody, gory wounds. A woman is beaten up by two men; she's tossed around and smashed up against things. Fighting, punching, snapping bones, martial arts, etc. Eye gouging. Villains shoot a woman in the head (her face is already bruised). Implication that rich businessmen sexually abuse a woman; she's shown crying after the fact. Man is shot with spear gun; spear goes through wall, covered in blood. Car crashes. Explosions. Crime scene photos. Teenager in danger and almost killed.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sporadic uses of "f--k," the "N" word, "s--t," "son of a bitch," "goddamn," "ass," "crap," "hell," etc.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Ride service Lyft is featured heavily. Catchphrases like "Lyft off!" and "Thanks for the Lyft" used.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Scene involving drug dealers. Brief use of hard drugs (large pile of cocaine shown). Social drinking. A minor character appears to be an alcoholic. Background cigar and cigarette smoking.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that The Equalizer 2 is the sequel to Denzel Washington 's 2014 action film The Equalizer and is loosely based on the same-named 1980s TV series. Like its predecessor, it's very violent, but the appealing main character and the inventive action scenes will make it entertaining for older teens and up. Expect to see lots of guns/shooting and knives/stabbing; there are blood spatters and gory wounds. Men beat up a woman, slamming her around a room, and a man shoots a woman in the head. There's also an implication of sexual abuse -- not to mention eye gouging, a man being shot with a speargun, explosions, car crashes, and crime scene photos. Language includes sporadic but strong uses of "f--k," the "N" word, and "s--t." There's a sequence involving drug dealing, hard drug use and drinking are briefly shown, and one minor character appears to be an alcoholic. Background characters smoke cigars and cigarettes. Ride service Lyft is featured prominently throughout. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Community Reviews

• Parents say (11)
• Kids say (8)

Based on 11 parent reviews

Highway to Heaven disguised as an action movie.

Fantastic, what's the story.

In THE EQUALIZER 2, former secret agent Robert McCall ( Denzel Washington ) takes a quick jaunt to Turkey to retrieve a kidnapped girl. Then he returns to his life in Boston. Presumed dead, he lives quietly, reading and driving for Lyft. McCall befriends a teen neighbor, Miles (Ashton Sanders, Moonlight ), who dreams of being an artist. When their courtyard is covered in graffiti, McCall encourages Miles to re-paint it. Meanwhile, McCall's former colleague Susan Plummer ( Melissa Leo ) visits him on his late wife's birthday before she heads to Brussels to investigate a supposed murder-suicide. Later, she's attacked in her hotel room, and McCall gets word that she's dead. He reveals himself to Susan's partner, Dave York ( Pedro Pascal ), and starts investigating her death. Unfortunately, this brings him to the attention of a group of killers. Worse, the killers decide to use Miles as bait to catch McCall.

Is It Any Good?

This sequel to The Equalizer , itself based on the 1980s TV series, is more of the same, with (too) familiar screenwriting, a compelling lead character, and inventive action scenes. Director Antoine Fuqua , screenwriter Richard Wenk, and star Washington reunite for The Equalizer 2 as if they'd never left, slipping back into their well-worn roles with expert ease. Wenk cooks up a nifty, James Bond-like "unrelated incident" opening, just to show that McCall's skills are still sharp (and he still uses his stopwatch like a boss). There's also an easily identifiable "surprise" villain and a very basic good-vs.-evil, honor-vs.-betrayal plot.

Washington finds McCall's sympathetic center, spending time listening to and observing his Lyft customers, quietly moved by their small joys and sorrows. But the real reason to watch is Fuqua's expertly staged action sequences, including the opening scene on a train in Istanbul, a tense home-invasion sequence in which Miles hides inside McCall's secret room, and especially the storm-swept showdown. McCall meets the bad guys in his seaside hometown, where the wind is so strong the soundtrack echoes with the groans of structures being tested on their foundations and the spatter of rain. The Equalizer 2 is ultimately as weightless as any of a dozen action thrillers made in the 1980s, but it's also enjoyably diverting.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about The Equalizer 2 's violence . How did it affect you? Was it thrilling? Shocking? How does the movie achieve this effect? What's the impact of media violence on kids?

Is McCall a hero? A role model ? How does he decide who's nice/worth helping and who isn't nice (and worth killing)? He does many good deeds, but he can also be very brutal. How would you feel about someone like this in real life?

How is drug dealing portrayed? How does Miles view it, and how does McCall view it?

How does this movie compare to the original? How does it compare to the TV series?

Movie Details

• In theaters : July 20, 2018
• On DVD or streaming : December 11, 2018
• Cast : Denzel Washington , Pedro Pascal , Melissa Leo
• Director : Antoine Fuqua
• Inclusion Information : Black directors, Black actors, Latino actors, Female actors
• Studios : Columbia Pictures , Sony Pictures Releasing
• Genre : Thriller
• Run time : 125 minutes
• MPAA rating : R
• MPAA explanation : brutal violence throughout, language, and some drug content
• Last updated : December 2, 2023

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

Suggest an Update

Our editors recommend.

The Equalizer

Training Day

Best Action Movies for Kids

Thriller movies.

Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners.

• Become a Critical Movie Critic
• Movie Review Archives

Movie Review: The Equalizer 2 (2018)

• Frank Ochieng
• Movie Reviews
• --> October 14, 2018

Following up from 2014’s urban actioner, “ The Equalizer ,” the blood-thirsty avenger/defender out to protect the vulnerable from predatory forces is back in fighting form in The Equalizer 2 . Returning as Robert McCall, the former CIA-operative-turned-people-protector, is two-time Academy Award winner Denzel Washington and joining with him is director Antoine Fuqua (who directed the charismatic actor to a Best Actor Oscar for 2001’s police drama “Training Day”). Together they set the retaliatory lone wolf on another high-stakes agenda assisting jeopardized individuals in need.

Sadly, however, their latest collaborative effort is a plodding, formulaic firecracker of a twitchy showcase that merely trudges through the excitable motions. Washington’s menacing McCall — entertaining a deadly hidden talent when confronted with unremedied ills — is merely a cardboard caricature pitted in (and against) manufactured messiness.

In this iteration, we find our Boston-based hero employed as a Lyft driver living a low-key existence when not assigning himself high-maintenance “equalizing” duties. McCall is humbled by living in a drab apartment, reading his library collection of books, spending personal time cleansing dirty building exteriors in the neighborhood and even striking up an impromptu friendship with Holocaust survivor Sam Rubenstein (veteran actor Orson Bean). McCall, you see, is a complex man trying to escape the demons of his mysterious past by acting like an everyday man who goes about doing everyday man things.

But when old friend Susan Plummer (Academy Award-winner Melissa Leo, “ The Fighter ”) visits the isolated McCall and informs him that one of his close pals was viciously killed, the urge for righting a wrong is reactivated and our hero soon decides to undertake this mission to exact some butt-kicking revenge. As if McCall’s perilous plate was not full enough though, there is a side subplot involving a promising art student named Miles (Ashton Sanders, “ Moonlight ”) who is facing some possible static from a local gang that threatens his promising livelihood.

Unfortunately, The Equalizer 2 feels needlessly forced in producing its synthetic feelings and throbbing thrills. For the most part, Washington anchors this mediocre action flick with an eerie edginess that at times registers with taut resonance. Still, his performance feels conveniently distant while never quite capturing the essence of a broken man haunted by smothering alienation. Instead, Fuqua opts to allow Washington’s McCall to march through his mental malaise without establishing a sturdy understanding for this character’s quiet descent into isolationism and despondency. Lazily, Fuqua and Washington rely on the empty appeal of a rising count of bloody and bruised bodies as the one-man wrecking crew shtick follows its predictable path to resolution.

The Equalizer 2 ultimately joins other conveyor belt revenge fantasies haphazardly conceived in 2018 such as the dreadfully bad “ Death Wish ” reboot and the gimmicky “ Proud Mary .” Washington may be a dynamic actor and Fuqua a competent director, but neither deliver their A-game in this lukewarm sequel. While it probably won’t happen, the best course of action for Washington and company is to put a halt to McCall’s prowess as a pugnacious problem solver and shelve any potential further installments before things get any more askew.

Tagged: Boston , CIA , gang , revenge , sequel , violence

Frank Ochieng has been an online movie reviewer for various movie outlets throughout the years before coming on board at CMC. Previously, Frank had been a film critic for The Boston Banner (now The Bay State Banner) urban newspaper and had appeared on Boston's WBZ NewsRadio 1030 AM for an 11-year run as a recurring media commentator/panelist on the "Movie/TV Night" overnight broadcasts. He is a member of the Online Film Critics Society (OFCS) and the Internet Film Critics Society (IFCS). Frank is a graduate of Suffolk University in the historic section of Boston's Beacon Hill.

Movie Review: Hooking Up (2020) Movie Review: I Still Believe (2020) Movie Review: Spenser Confidential (2020) Movie Review: Cane River (1982) Movie Review: The Assistant (2020) Movie Review: Jojo Rabbit (2019) Movie Review: American Woman (2019)

Privacy Policy | About Us

 |  Log in

The Equalizer 2 Review

17 Aug 2018

The Equalizer 2

Believe it or not, Denzel Washington has never made a sequel. Inside Man never led to Inside Men. Training Day , for obvious reasons, didn’t make it beyond graduation. And, despite appearances to the contrary, The Taking Of Pelham 123 was not a follow-up to the previous 122 films in the Pelham series.

Until, as they say, now. At first glance, The Equalizer , Washington’s big-screen version of the beloved Ewah Woowah ’80s TV show, may seem a strange choice of project with which to pop his franchise cherry. But it makes perfect sense. Robert McCall, his retired black ops veteran, the sort of man who can kill you with a credit card, is the perfect vessel to peg a series on. At the end of the first movie, he became more recognisably the McCall of the TV show, a mercenary for hire, available to right wrongs for those whose wrongs have remained resolutely unrighted. And it’s that McCall we pick up with this time around, taking out a group of bad guys on a train bound for Turkey in a neat, efficient, brutal credits re-establisher.

Then, we head back to the States, where McCall has set up a quiet life for himself in a tenement building. He becomes attached to a young black man (Sanders) who has a gift with a paintbrush, but may be heading for a life of crime. He also keeps himself busy as a Lyft driver, which allows the film to introduce a posse of potential clients/punching bags. These early scenes, in which Antoine Fuqua — working with Washington for the fourth time, following Training Day , The Magnificent Seven , and the first Equalizer — cuts back and forth between McCall’s interactions with different passengers, are a joy, Washington breathing warmth into a character that might otherwise be lost in his self-imposed isolation.

Then, as it must, the plot kicks in, and things become more generic. This is the kind of movie where people die exactly when you expect them to, characters get kidnapped exactly when the plot requires it, and hidden agendas are revealed right on cue. But when you’re in the hands of old stagers like Fuqua, writer Richard Wenk and Washington, even the predictable can elicit pleasure. The law of diminishing returns is in play, especially in a storm-tossed climax that doesn’t come close to the kill-crazy hardware store antics of the original, but it’s still fun to see Denzel kicking all kinds of ass at the ripe old age of 60. Very few actors can make lines like, “I’m going to kill each and every one of you, and the only disappointment is I only get to do it once,” work, but Washington can without breaking a sweat. If this doesn’t lead to his first threequel, we’d be more than happy to watch a TV show starring McCall. What a novel idea.

Related Articles

Movies | 01 08 2023

Movies | 25 04 2023

Movies | 17 08 2018

Movies | 12 08 2018

Movies | 06 08 2018

Movies | 29 07 2018

Movies | 21 07 2018

Movies | 25 06 2018

‘The Equalizer 2’ Review: Denzel Washington Returns to Right More Wrongs

By Peter Travers

Peter Travers

Denzel Washington playing a Lyft driver? No one could have predicted that casting choice. But in The Equalizer 2 – the first sequel ever in the 63-year-old star’s career – the actor gets behind the wheel and picks up customers in the Boston area. God help you if you piss him off. Washington’s character, Robert McCall is still a retired special-ops agent hellbent on equalizing the criminal scum he encounters on his watch. His cover last time was a job at Home Depot, but the Lyft gig gives him access to the worst of people. Edward Woodward, who starred in the 1980s series on which The Equalizer is based, never got to lay on rough, R-rated justice like Denzel does. You’re probably thinking, isn’t the two-time Oscar winner punching below his weight in a vigilante movie? Yes. But nothing dims his star power.

With the return of director Antoine Fuqua ( Training Day ), the sequel to the original 2014 thriller gives Washington a trusted collaborator. And with no need to lay the groundwork for the character like the first time, the sequel is faster on its feet than before. Yes, Richard Wenk’s threadbare script still insists on showing us McCall dispatch a few baddies just to give us a taste of his MO. There an opening scene on a train in Turkey in which the hero makes mincemeat of baby traffickers who’ve stolen a infant from her American mother. Bet on this fixer, who lives to help the helpless, to equalize the bastards.

Just don’t expect anything original. Remember last time when McCall pulverized the Russian pimp population to save a teen hooker named Teri (Chloë Grace Moretz)? Now he switches focus to Miles ( Moonlight ‘s excellent Ashton Sanders ), an African-American art student who’s letting his ambition slide to hang with junkies and gangbangers. McCall, the ultimate father figure, is not going to let that happen. He gets distracted by a visit from his former Agency handler Susan Plummer (Melissa Leo), who still cares about him.

Then something happens to her in Paris that gets McCall’s blood up. For info, he reconnects with intelligence buddy Dave York (Pedro Pascal) who thinks our man has been dead all these years. Not bloody likely. This all leads to a ultra-violent shootout with the bad guys (and a kidnapped Miles) during a raging storm near the beach house McCall one shared with his wife. Cue the expertly choreographed bloodbath. Fuqua spares no gore. It’s just the moral issues that go begging.

Yet the question persists: Why would a quality actor like Washington (who just gave a titanic performance on Broadway in Eugene O’Neill’s classic The Iceman Cometh ) waste his time with B-movie bang-bang? You could theorize that this son of a Pentecostal preacher identifies with these Equalizer stories about young people in danger of falling through the cracks of society. He has publicly stated he was once in that position himself and got help. Whatever his reasons, the star brings a humanity and a resonant dramatic force to the role of McCall that the movie he’s in can’t hope to match. The Equalizer 2 feels uneven and off balance. But not Washington. Despite his trashy trappings, there’s no one cooler to watch in action.

Zombie Sequel '28 Years Later' Sets June 2025 Release

• the running dead
• By Daniel Kreps

Andy Cohen Cleared in Bravo Investigation, 'Watch What Happens Live' Renewed

• Watch What Happens
• By Ethan Millman

Harvey Weinstein Will Stay in a New York Jail as Court Considers California Extradition Before Retrial

• Weinstein Retrial
• By Jon Blistein

Carmy Gets His Knives Out in Release Date-Revealing 'The Bear' Season Three Teaser

• By Larisha Paul

Jon Stewart Will Bring His 'Razor-Sharp Wit' to New 'Weekly Show' Podcast

• Funny for Your Ears
• By Tomás Mier

Most Popular

Emily blunt says she's 'absolutely' wanted to throw up after kissing certain actors during filming: 'i've definitely not enjoyed some of it.', peter jackson working on new 'lord of the rings' films for warner bros., targeting 2026 debut, a rare photo of tom cruise with his 2 oldest kids gives a glimpse into their relationship with their dad, near the giza pyramids, archaeologists identify a newly discovered ancient egyptian structure, you might also like, zendaya’s stylist law roach names designers who refused to dress her on red carpets, including dior and gucci: ‘if you say no, it’ll be forever’ , fausto puglisi handed guido carli prize , the best yoga mats for any practice, according to instructors, hideo kojima’s response to seeing ‘furiosa’: ‘[george miller] is my god, and the saga he tells is my bible’, purdue to turn final four court panels into collectibles.

Rolling Stone is a part of Penske Media Corporation. © 2024 Rolling Stone, LLC. All rights reserved.

Verify it's you

Please log in.

Flickering Myth

Geek Culture | Movies, TV, Comic Books & Video Games

Movie Review – The Equalizer 2 (2018)

August 7, 2018 by Matt Rodgers

The Equalizer 2 , 2018.

Directed by Antoine Fuqua Starring Denzel Washington, Pedro Pascal, Ashton Sanders, Melissa Leo, Bill Pullman, Jonathan Scarfe, Orson Bean, Sakina Jaffrey, and Caroline Day.

Robert McCall (Denzel Washington) is an app-assisted taxi driver by day, angel of justice at night, so when his latest mission to protect the exploited and oppressed strikes a little close to home, it sets him on a path of deadly vengeance to protect those closest to him.

In his long, illustrious, award laden career, Denzel Washington has never felt the need to return for a sequel to any of his movies……pause for dramatic effect……until now. What made him opt for a sequel to Antoine Fuqua’s lucrative ($192 million), yet ramshackle adaptation of a British TV show from the 80s is anyone’s guess? Sure it’s in his wheelhouse of stoic, insular characters with the burdens of his past bubbling beneath the surface, but was anyone really crying out for the further adventures of Robert McCall?

The Equalizer 2 gets off to a decent start, with some nice vignettes of the customers he picks up in his car adding emotional attachment to a film you might worry is all fists and fury, in fact it’s a department in which the sequel surpasses the original. The stakes seem a lot higher due to the personal link that McCall has with each of the characters affected by his increasingly dire situation, even if this means the bad guy can be predicted within seconds of his on-screen appearance (if you hadn’t already worked it out from the trailer), it makes the revenge aspect that much more satisfying than simply being about identikit Russian thugs.

One unwelcome carry over from the first film is the rather silly Sherlock Holmes (Downey Jr. and Cumberbatch iterations) pre-fight deduction sequences. Washington’s phantom shape and gut punch brutality should be enough without having to resort to a stupid sixth-sense gimmick that turns him into a superhero. Thankfully it’s only used a couple of times, and one of those is punctuated by one of the film’s rare moments of humour, during which Washington tells a criminal that he’s about to incapacitate that he “expects a 5 star rating”.

The action is more successful in scenes such as the attempted Uber assassination, in which close-combat is merged with gunfire and the violent in-camera POV shunting of the car. It might not be original, but it’s brilliantly executed compared to the pedestrian nature of the rest of the film, which features possibly the most tonally jarring set-piece finale in a long time, in which The Equalizer 2 essentially turns into The Hurricane Heist . It’s here that incomprehensible fights take place, as action tropes are ticked off faster than the bad guys.

Where the film excels is with the cast, who really deserve better; Moonlight ‘s Ashton Sanders brings charisma and heart to his role, striking up a decent chemistry with Washington, but soon becomes little more than a plot-device. The same could be said for Melissa Leo. Bill Pullman is hardly in the movie [again], and Pedro Pascal, so good in Narcos , is dialling it in with his pivotal role.

As with a lot of Denzel Washington movies, it’s left to him to elevate the material to a loftier perch than it deserves. To be honest, it’d be much more enjoyable watching him drive round for two hours taking fares, rather than skulk around for the same duration taking names.

Flickering Myth Rating – Film ★ ★ / Movie ★ ★

Matt Rodgers –  Follow me on Twitter @mainstreammatt

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE:

Ace Ventura: Pet Detective – The zany Jim Carrey comedy at 30

The Essential Revisionist Westerns of the 21st Century

Five More Sylvester Stallone Movies That Need a Sequel After Cliffhanger

Cannon Films and the Masters of the Universe

Star Wars: The Phantom Menace at 25 – Still a franchise low-point?

Exploring George A. Romero’s Non-Zombie Movies

Yellowstone: What Will Happen to Kevin Costner’s John Dutton in Season 5 Part 2?

Great Movies Guaranteed To Creep You Out

Ten Essential Films of the 1940s

Takashi Miike: The Modern Godfather of Horror

• Comic Books
• Video Games
• Toys & Collectibles
• Articles and Opinions
• About Flickering Myth
• Write for Flickering Myth
• Advertise on Flickering Myth
• Terms of Use
• Privacy Policy

• International edition
• Australia edition
• Europe edition

The Equalizer 2 review – Denzel Washington can't save dull sequel

An uninteresting follow-up to the 80s TV reboot wastes a star turn from the Oscar-winning actor on a plot that reads like middle-aged male fantasy

I n the US, there’s an adage among a certain political sect that the only thing capable of stopping a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. In The Equalizer 2, Antoine Fuqua’s follow-up to his 2014 reboot of the 80s TV staple that is somehow not titled “The Sequelizer”, that expression gets an amendment. The only thing capable of stopping five bad guys with guns is a Denzel with a gun, and probably a couple of knives, too, just to be sure.

Much like the recent exhuming of the more overtly reactionary Death Wish pictures, the return of Denzel Washington’s avenging angel Robert McCall plays to a distinctly American, distinctly male power fantasy. A former marine, retired CIA black op and recent widower, McCall is getting long in the tooth. (Never the type to put too fine a point on things, Fuqua has the avowed bookworm tackling Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time as the final entry on his lifetime reading list.) He fills his days by driving for Lyft, patiently listening to a doddering old-timer in his neighborhood and trying to keep local boy Miles (Moonlight star Ashton Sanders) out of the gang life. He’s trying to leave behind a better world than the one he entered, repainting a graffitied wall of his building and urging Miles not to use cuss words.

But greater evils than the occasional S-word lurk among the high-rises of Boston’s lower-income neighborhoods, and accordingly, McCall must take more extreme measures in his quest to purge the streets of wrongdoers. It starts when some skeevy financial types dump a roughed-up female intern in his car, and McCall goes up to their penthouse to crack some skulls after safely depositing her at the hospital. He takes it upon himself to pick up the police’s slack by going vigilante with principle, dropping pseudo-slick one-liners about good manners while he dispatches the no-goodniks who fall through the cracks.

Last time around, he was helping out streetwise teen prostitute Chloë Grace Moretz, and now, he’s unraveling a convoluted, uninteresting conspiracy threatening his pals Dave and Susan (Pedro Pascal and Melissa Leo , respectively). In either case, the mentality undergirding his actions remains the same. He’s a naked expression of the middle-aged man’s desire to remain relevant and in command of his immediate surroundings. Washington is now 63 years old, and McCall acts even older – though he never tells anyone to pull their sagging pants up, you can tell he is at all times thinking it – but he has no trouble putting the smackdown on men two or three decades his junior. Like the cowboys who took the law into their own hands before him, a tradition evoked by a final shot mimicking John Ford’s indelible end to The Searchers, he acts as a compromised society’s self-appointed moral guardian. We want him on that wall, we need him on that wall, etc.

He claims to pursue justice, and because Washington has had 30-odd years to perfect his onscreen charisma, the audience may very well believe him. (That Washington is charming enough to disguise McCall’s clear streak of Travis Bickle-level sociopathy ranks as this production’s greatest asset.) In actuality, he’s in pursuit of something far nastier, cheaper and faster – revenge. The Equalizer pictures operate under a false moral imperative, using the mission of cleaning up the streets as a cover for the same pat hyper-stylized, near-pornographic brutality. The audience at this critic’s screening howled with approval at intimately photographed knifings, shootings, and one instance in which a man is flung from a great height on to some sharp rocks. The film would have us believe that that reaction isn’t what McCall would’ve wanted, but it’s clear that this has been Fuqua’s game all along.

The script makes repeated mention of what it means to be a man, as McCall often disses his enemies by impugning their masculinity. A real man would never lay hands on a woman, he rules, a real man has honor or a moral code. Little does Fuqua realize that his hero embodies the spirit of this particular variety of manhood more completely than he could have intended. For there is nothing more typical of a middle-aged American man’s fragile ego than the need to regain command over a world in the process of leaving him behind. The film ends with young Miles applying himself by putting his artistic talents to use on a comic book immortalizing the Equalizer, and in doing so, completing the dream of geriatric action (geriaction?) cinema: to remain vital, respected and capable forever. When a child feels this impulse to be big and strong, we get the inspirational superhero pictures currently flooding multiplexes. When a grown adult feels this way, however, the result is sad – pathetic, even – and in the worst cases, dangerous.

• The Equalizer 2 is released in the US on 20 July and in the UK on 17 August
• Denzel Washington
• Action and adventure films
• Melissa Leo

Comments (…)

Most viewed.

The Equalizer 2

Review by brian eggert july 20, 2018.

Antoine Fuqua often makes movies about dangerous, highly trained loners facing down a corrupt institution or an unbeatable cadre of bad guys in no-win scenarios. Let’s review: Back in 2000, he made Bait , featuring Jamie Foxx as a hustler who outwits both the feds and the criminal underworld. In  Shooter   (2007), Mark Wahlberg played an exiled sniper who embarks on a solitary mission to take down conspirators in a presidential assassination plot.  Olympus Has Fallen (2011) featured a former Secret Service agent single-handedly saving the President of the United States from a siege on the White House. Fuqua’s remake  The Magnificent Seven   (2016) pitted seven roguish heroes against a small army of bandits. And, of course, in  The Equalizer   (2014), Denzel Washington plays Robert McCall, an ex-special-ops-turned-badass-Good-Samaritan whose gimmicks involve helping those in his Boston neighborhood, dispensing with baddies in the most gratuitously violent ways possible, and timing his elaborate beatings on his wristwatch for some inexplicable reason.

The sequel, The Equalizer 2 , cuts down on the absurd violence of the first film, which found McCall using power tools on Russian gangsters in ridiculously gory action scenes. In what is perhaps an overcorrection of the original’s excessive bloodshed, Fuqua delivers a much slower, leisurely paced sequel that tests the viewer’s patience and remains light on killing (compared to the original, anyway). The screenplay by Richard Wenk takes its time reestablishing McCall, an obsessive-compulsive lone wolf who has since given up his job at “Home Mart” to drive for Lyft. Wenk explores several extraneous subplots involving McCall’s passengers and other ponderous scenes of the hero quietly reflecting, suggesting Fuqua thinks he’s making an existentialist crime saga on par with the works of Jean-Pierre Melville or Michael Mann. But the substance of  The Equalizer 2 , nonsensically dubbed “ EQ2 ” on promotional material, remains thin, and the film’s plodding tempo makes its two-hour runtime feel much, much longer.

The first minutes involve protracted establishing shots of the Boston skyline and landmarks, as well as throwaway moments of McCall driving random Lyft passengers to their destinations. The sheer volume of B-roll footage throughout  The Equalizer 2 —much of it shot by cinematographer Oliver Wood using drone photography—is astounding, and exteriors of eventual locations in Belgium and Washington D.C. become tiresome and banal given their frequency (in part due to the globe-trotting script). Add to this Wenk’s penchant for unnecessary subplots, and the viewer spends much of the film’s length waiting for something meaningful to happen. It’s as though Fuqua and Wenk resolved to combine the most uninteresting parts from several episodes of the original 1980s television series into a single film, leaving the result to feel sluggish. Take the unnecessary subplot about McCall helping a senior citizen ( Orson Bean) locate his long-lost relative, separated since World War II; its absence could have easily trimmed down the proceedings by ten minutes or so. It serves no purpose to the larger story, nor does the random aside about McCall giving a beatdown to a bunch of spoiled brahs who abuse a young woman (though the outcome is much more satisfying here). 

The main throughline concerns McCall’s former colleague, Susan Plummer (Melissa Leo), getting murdered in her Belgian hotel room after investigating the supposed suicide of a CIA agent. After looking at the case, McCall realizes that Susan’s murder, made to look like a robbery-gone-wrong, leads to something more nefarious involving another former colleague (Pedro Pascal). Meantime, McCall befriends a neighborhood teen, Miles ( Ashton Sanders, from Moonlight ), who teeters between becoming an artist and falling in line with a group of local gangsters. Wenk forces these two plot strains together in ungainly ways, while also revealing more about McCall’s mysterious past. Vague allusions to the vigilante’s dead wife and departure from the CIA shroud McCall in a clichéd cloud of mystery and tragedy. Washington, of course, lends tremendous charisma to his character’s screen presence, but Wenk doesn’t give McCall or Washington much to do. 

Once the action picks up in the final twenty minutes, the climactic sequence proves laughably conceived, with a final shootout in an abandoned coastal town during an oncoming hurricane. Imagine a sniper atop a tower during 100-mile-an-hour winds, and yet somehow he’s able to shoot straight from hundreds of yards away. Seems unlikely. Not that it matters—McCall slices, dices, and explodes the opposition, with Fuqua getting his camera deep into the viscera. Fuqua’s camera choices are erratic; he uses shoulder-mounted cameras, dramatically low or high angles, and a goofy effect that disappears into McCall’s eye to show the viewer how he envisions a future fight. Somewhere between Sherlock Holmes and Batman, McCall is a modern, everyday superhero—a comparison the film is happy to make.

Besides the ending’s shootout and one or two exciting moments in the middle, Fuqua saturates his film with dull and empty scenes intended to convey McCall’s inner state. McCall sits in silence, he reads, or he drives Lyft and listens to his passengers talk. Sometimes he contemplates silently, fussing over his dinner or the arrangement of green apples, and the only sound in the scene is the ticking of a clock. Several quiet moments like these take place in the film, but they don’t amount to a character revelation. But this is transcendental filmmaking devoid of substance. Indeed, The Equalizer 2  leaves the viewer with a boredom hangover—a cloudy funk that lingers well after the credits roll, taking hours to dissipate. One of the worst crimes a filmmaker can commit is making a boring movie, but Fuqua, whose first  Equalizer  broke up the monotony with mindless violence, doesn’t offer his audience many cheap thrills. The alternative, however, is not so elevated as those involved would have us believe.

Related Titles

• In Theaters

Recent Reviews

• Evil Does Not Exist 4 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
• Patreon Exclusive: Coma 3.5 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
• Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes 3 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆
• Humane 3 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆
• Short Take: Unfrosted 1.5 Stars ☆ ☆
• The Fall Guy 2.5 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆
• The Idea of You 3 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆
• Patreon Exclusive: The Ex-Mrs. Bradford 3.5 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
• The Beast 4 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
• Challengers 4 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
• Infested 3 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆
• Boy Kills World 1.5 Stars ☆ ☆
• Patreon Exclusive: Tuesday 4 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
• Rebel Moon - Part Two: The Scargiver 0.5 Star ☆
• Patreon Exclusive: Sasquatch Sunset 4 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Recent Articles

• Guest Appearance: The LAMBcast - The Fall Guy
• The Definitives: Paris, Texas
• Reader's Choice: Saturday Night Fever
• MSPIFF 2024 – Dispatch 4
• MSPIFF 2024 – Dispatch 3
• Guest Appearance: KARE 11 - 3 movies you need to see in theaters now
• MSPIFF 2024 – Dispatch 2
• Reader's Choice: Birth/Rebirth
• MSPIFF 2024 – Dispatch 1
• MSPIFF 2024

The Equalizer 2

Streaming in:

We checked for updates on 245 streaming services on May 11, 2024 at 8:55:08 PM. Something wrong? Let us know!

The Equalizer 2 streaming: where to watch online?

Currently you are able to watch "The Equalizer 2" streaming on Hulu, fuboTV. It is also possible to buy "The Equalizer 2" on Microsoft Store, Apple TV, Amazon Video, Google Play Movies, YouTube, Vudu, AMC on Demand as download or rent it on Amazon Video, Google Play Movies, YouTube, Apple TV, Vudu, Microsoft Store online.

Where does The Equalizer 2 rank today? The JustWatch Daily Streaming Charts are calculated by user activity within the last 24 hours. This includes clicking on a streaming offer, adding a title to a watchlist, and marking a title as 'seen'. This includes data from ~1.3 million movie & TV show fans per day.

Streaming charts last updated: 9:12:57 PM, 05/11/2024

The Equalizer 2 is 41 on the JustWatch Daily Streaming Charts today. The movie has moved up the charts by 17 places since yesterday. In the United States, it is currently more popular than Shrek 2 but less popular than The Greatest Hits.

Robert McCall, who serves an unflinching justice for the exploited and oppressed, embarks on a relentless, globe-trotting quest for vengeance when his former partner is murdered.

Videos: Trailers, Teasers, Featurettes

Streaming Charts The JustWatch Daily Streaming Charts are calculated by user activity within the last 24 hours. This includes clicking on a streaming offer, adding a title to a watchlist, and marking a title as 'seen'. This includes data from ~1.3 million movie & TV show fans per day.

Production country

Bundle offers, people who liked the equalizer 2 also liked.

Popular movies coming soon

Upcoming Mystery & Thriller movies

Similar Movies you can watch for free

Netflix top 10 movies — here’s the 3 worth watching right now

These are the must-watch movies in the Netflix top 10

• Best of Netflix top 10
• Full Netflix top 10

Want something new to watch on Netflix? The streamer's list of the top 10 most-watched movies on the platform is a great place to start, as this ever-changing ranking gives you an insight into what flicks are drawing the interest of subscribers.

However, the Netflix top 10 isn’t always a well-curated list of movies worth adding to your watchlist. Over the years, we’ve seen plenty of low-quality films make their way into the streamer’s most-watched list. Case in point, the truly terrible Adam Sandler comedy "Blended" is currently ranked No. 9, and it's certainly one to skip.  

That's why I’m picking out the standout options in the Netflix top 10 that deserve your viewing time right now. This list includes one of the best Robert Downey Jr. dramas you've (probably) not seen as well as a classic animated comedy, and a slick action movie that proves Denzel Washington is the coolest man in Hollywood.

These picks are based on the Netflix top 10 as of 7:35 a.m. ET on Wednesday, May 8. And for even more top films that you can enjoy from the comfort of your own home, be sure to check out our list of the top 5 new movies to stream this week. 

Best movies in the Netflix top 10

‘the judge’ (2014).

“The Judge” is an example of a movie where critics and viewers don’t quite see eye-to-eye. While its 49% score on Rotten Tomatoes is enough to earn the Robert Downey Jr. fronted drama a “rotten” rating, its audience score is much more positive at a fairly strong 72%. For reference, I lean more towards the viewer score on this one, while the legal drama is a little long in the tooth, it’s well-constructed and features a host of strong performances not just from Downey Jr. but also Robert Duvall, Vera Farmiga, Jeremy Strong and Vincent D’Onofrio. 

The predominantly courtroom-set movie focuses on Hank Palmer (Downey Jr.) a successful defense attorney in Chicago, who returns to his hometown in Indiana following the death of his mother. Reuniting with his father, Judge Joseph Palmer (Duvall), the pair’s fractured relationship is put to the ultimate test when Hank must defend his father in court after he’s accused of murder. As the case proceeds family secrets and struggles come to light. 

Watch on Netflix now

Sign up to get the BEST of Tom’s Guide direct to your inbox.

Upgrade your life with a daily dose of the biggest tech news, lifestyle hacks and our curated analysis. Be the first to know about cutting-edge gadgets and the hottest deals.

‘Shrek’ (2001)

“Shrek” is one of the most beloved (and memed) animated movies ever made. It’s a family-friendly classic that needs no introduction, but if you’ve somehow yet to make acquaintance with the big green guy, this comedy follows the titular Shrek (Mike Myers), a swamp-dwelling ogre, on a perilous quest to save Princess Fiona (Cameron Diaz) from a dragon-guarded tower on the orders of Lord Farquaad (John Lithgow). Along for the ride is a wisecracking talking mule, called Donkey (Eddie Murphy). 

Set in a fantasy land, “Shrek” is a clever satire of fairy tales and riffs on several well-told stories like The Three Blind Mice and Little Red Riding Hood, and also takes a few playful swipes at Disney movies. It’s a real crowd-pleaser crammed full of loveable characters, and a soundtrack that has become iconic (it’s the reason that “All Star” by Smash Mouth remains a house party staple). While the animation is now a bit dated, “Shrek” remains a firm favorite to this day, and is as fun in 2024 as it’s ever been. 

‘The Equalizer’ (2014)

“The Equalizer” is the perfect vehicle for Denzel Washington to showcase his action credentials. The legendary actor is practically perfect in the lead role of Robert McCall, a former special service commando, now living a quiet life in Boston. But this peaceful retirement doesn’t last when the experienced soldier is forced to go to war with the Russian mafia to protect a vulnerable young girl. What follows is a very bloody conflict.  

Tapping into the same power fantasy as the “John Wick” movies (the first of which was released just a few weeks later), “The Equalizer” has spawned a franchise with two sequels and a TV show spin-off, but as is often the case, the original remains the best. While the hook of a retired soldier delivering no-hold-barred justice isn’t exactly original, the real selling point of “The Equalizer” is the magnetic screen presence of Denzel Washington. 

Netflix top 10 movies right now

• "Unfrosted" (2024)
• "Shrek" (2001)
• "The Judge" (2014)
• "One More Shot" (2024)
• "The Great Wall" (2016) 
• "Shrek Forever After" (2010)
• "The Equalizer" (2014)
• "Anyone But You" (2023)
• "Blended" (2014) 
• "Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa"

More from Tom's Guide

• This Robert Downey Jr. legal drama just crashed the Netflix top 10
• 5 top new movies to stream this week on Netflix, Max and Hulu and more
• New on Netflix: 5 movies and shows to watch this week

Rory is an Entertainment Editor at Tom’s Guide based in the UK. He covers a wide range of topics but with a particular focus on gaming and streaming. When he’s not reviewing the latest games, searching for hidden gems on Netflix, or writing hot takes on new gaming hardware, TV shows and movies, he can be found attending music festivals and getting far too emotionally invested in his favorite football team. 

One of my favorite feel-good movies just crashed the Netflix top 10 — and it’s 95% on Rotten Tomatoes

3 best psychological thrillers on Netflix you (probably) haven't watched

Nottm Forest vs Chelsea live stream: How to watch Premier League game online

Most Popular

• 2 OpenAI could drop its own search engine on Monday — here’s what it needs to take on Google
• 3 First look at 'The Bear' season 3 in new teaser trailer — and a confirmed release date for all episodes on Hulu
• 4 Score! M4 iPad Pro gets first discount at Best Buy — here's how to get it
• 5 Google Chrome could get a Circle to Search-style upgrade — here's what it might look like
• 2 First look at 'The Bear' season 3 in new teaser trailer — and a confirmed release date for all episodes on Hulu
• 3 Score! M4 iPad Pro gets first discount at Best Buy — here's how to get it
• 4 Google Chrome could get a Circle to Search-style upgrade — here's what it might look like
• 5 Amazon is giving Prime members a free copy of Fallout 3 — here’s how to claim yours

Screen Rant

Every movie coming to theaters in september 2023.

Your changes have been saved

Email Is sent

Please verify your email address.

You’ve reached your account maximum for followed topics.

I’m Sad Rey’s New Star Wars Movie Cannot Continue The Very Best Idea From The Rise Of Skywalker

This 29-year-old denzel washington terminator ripoff also marked kaley cuoco's film debut, "we would never do that": dwayne johnson's fiery action scenes in $304m movie get poor score from firefighter.

• September 2023 brings a variety of movies to theaters, including horror stories from major franchises like The Conjuring and Saw, along with new stories from different genres.
• The Equalizer 3 follows retired Marine Robert McCall as he uncovers the control of the Sicilian Mafia over his new friends, forcing him to protect them using his past skills.
• My Big Fat Greek Weeding 3 reunites viewers with the Portokalos family as they embark on a trip to Greece for a family reunion, filled with love, twists, and funny moments.

September 2023 will see a variety of movies coming to theaters, including some horror movies to kick off the spookiest season of the year, such as two horror stories from major franchises, the third entry in an action film series, the return of the Portokalos family, a new Hercule Poirot adventure, the latest mission from the Expendables team, and more. August 2023 welcomed some exciting stories, as were Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem , the sci-fi action horror movie Meg 2: The Trench , the supernatural horror movie The Last Voyage of the Demeter , the biographical sports movie Gran Turismo , and DC’s Blue Beetle .

As August was mostly about big releases , none of them are available to stream yet, but the movies hitting theaters in September are exciting enough to fill in that void. September will see a bunch of sequels from some popular franchises, along with new stories from a variety of genres. That said, September will welcome new stories from the horror franchises of The Conjuring and Saw , the return of Robert McCall, Toula and her family, Hercule Poirot, and the Expendables team, along with Gareth Edwards’ latest project, among other stories. Here’s every movie coming to theaters in September 2023 .

The Equalizer 3 - September 1

The Equalizer 3 is a thriller directed by Antoine Fuqua and the third and final installment in The Equalizer trilogy. The Equalizer 3 marks the return of retired U.S. Marine and former DIA officer Robert McCall (Denzel Washington), who moves to Southern Italy to escape from his past. However, he finds out that his new friends are controlled by the Sicilian Mafia, and when things turn truly horrible, McCall unleashes his past self to protect his friends. Also starring in The Equalizer 3 are Dakota Fanning, Eugenio Mastrandrea, David Denman, Sonia Ben Ammar, and Remo Girone.

Aristotle And Dante Discover The Secrets Of The Universe - September 8

Aristotle And Dante Discover The Secrets Of The Universe is a coming-of-age rom-com directed by Aitch Alberto and based on the 2012 novel of the same name by Benjamin Alire Sáenz. Set in El Paso, Texas, in 1987, Aristotle and Dante follows the title Mexican American teenagers (played by Max Pelayo and Reese Gonzales, respectively) as they explore their friendship while dealing with racial and ethnic identity, sexuality, family relationships, and more. Also starring in Aristotle And Dante Discover The Secrets Of The Universe are Eugenio Derbez, Eva Longoria, Verónica Falcón, Isabella Gomez, Kevin Alejandro, Luna Blaise, and Marlene Forte.

The Nun II - September 8

The Nun II is a supernatural horror movie directed by Michael Chaves, and it’s the ninth installment in The Conjuring franchise. Set four years after the ending of The Nun , The Nun II follows Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga) as she comes face to face with the demonic force Valak at a boarding school in France. Also starring in The Nun II are Jonas Bloquet, Storm Reid, Anna Popplewell, Bonnie Aarons, and Katelyn Rose.

My Big Fat Greek Weeding 3 - September 8

My Big Fat Greek Weeding 3 is a rom-com directed by Nia Vardalos. My Big Fat Greek Weeding 3 r eunites viewers with the unforgettable Portokalos family as they all go on a trip to Greece for a family reunion after the death of Gus, Toula’s (Vardalos) father. Of course, the trip is full of twists and turns, but also a lot of love and funny moments from the always unpredictable Portokalos family. Also starring in My Big Fat Greek Weeding 3 are John Corbett, Louis Mandylor, Elena Kampouris, Lainie Kazan, Andrea Martin, Joey Fatone, Gia Carides, and Maria Vacratsis.

The Inventor - September 15

The Inventor is a stop-motion animated movie directed by Jim Capobianco. The Inventor tells the story of Leonardo da Vinci (voiced by Stephen Fry), who leaves Italy to join the French court, where he can experiment freely. There, Leonardo invents flying contraptions and war machines, studies cadavers, and more, while he also tackles the meaning of life itself with the help of French princess Marguerite de Nevarre (Daisy Ridley). Also part of the voice cast of The Inventor are Marion Cotillard, Matt Berry, Max Baumgarten, Ben Stranahan, and Daniel Swan.

A Haunting in Venice - September 15

A Haunting in Venice is a supernatural mystery thriller directed by Kenneth Branagh, based on the 1969 novel Hallowe’en Party by Agatha Christie, and it’s the third installment in Branagh’s Hercule Poirot film series. Set in post-World War II Venice, A Haunting in Venice follows Poirot (Branagh), who is now retired and living in his own exile. Poirot reluctantly agrees to attend a séance, and when one of the guests is murdered, it’s up to him to find out who the killer is. Also starring in A Haunting in Venice are Kyle Allen, Michelle Yeoh, Jamie Dornan, Camille Cottin, Tina Fey, and Emma Laird.

Expend4bles - September 22

Expend4bles (also known as The Expendables 4 ) is an action movie directed by Scott Waugh. The Expendables team is back and is assigned on a mission to stop Suarto Rahmat (Iko Uwais), the leader of a terrorist organization, from smuggling nuclear warheads that will unleash a conflict between Russia and the U.S. Expend4bles sees the return of Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture, and Sylvester Stallone, who are joined by Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, Megan Fox, Jacob Scipio, and Andy García. Like the first two movies in the Expendables series, Expend4bles has an R rating.

The Creator - September 29

The Creator is a sci-fi action thriller directed by Gareth Edwards. Set in a future where humans and the forces of artificial intelligence are at war, The Creator follows Joshua (John David Washington), an ex-special forces agent grieving the disappearance of his wife. Joshua is recruited to hunt down and kill the Creator, the architect of an advanced AI who developed a mysterious weapon that can end war and humanity itself, too. However, Joshua and his team discover that this powerful weapon is an AI in the form of a young child. Also starring in The Creator are Gemma Chan, Ken Watanabe, Allison Janney, and Sturgill Simpson.

Saw X - September 29

Saw X is a horror film directed by Kevin Greutert and serving as a direct sequel to Saw and a prequel to Saw II . As such, Saw X reunites viewers with John Kramer (Tobin Bell), who, desperate to find a cure for his cancer, travels to México for a risky and experimental medical procedure. Unfortunately, the entire operation turns out to be a scam, so Kramer sees a chance to continue his work and make the scammers pay for what they have been doing. Also starring in Saw X are Shawnee Smith (reprising her role as Amanda Young), Synnøve Macody Lund, Steven Brand, and Michael Beach.

Key Release Dates

The equalizer 3, my big fat greek wedding 3, the inventor (2023), a haunting in venice, expend4bles, the creator.

How a Charles Bronson Impersonator Managed a Movie Career With the Icon’s Face

No, Charles Bronson is not alive. This actor just shares an uncanny resemblance to him and made a movie career out of it.

The Big Picture

• Robert Bronzi, a Hungarian actor who resembles Charles Bronson, has built a movie career based solely on his likeness to the late actor.
• Director Rene Perez discovered Bronzi and decided to create movies centered on Bronzi playing Bronson-like characters.
• Bronzi's acting ability and Hungarian accent have been overcome with dubbing, and he has starred in several direct-to-video films, with more on the way.

Okay folks, hypothetical situation. Let's say you look like a famed, long-dead actor. Let's say Charles Bronson for kicks and giggles. Now, let's say you have very, very little acting experience, and what you have is limited to appearances in European Wild West stunt shows. Add in a thick Hungarian accent, one that is difficult to understand. Do you think you would be able to start — and sustain — a movie career on what is essentially the merits of your face? If you said no, well, you completely do not understand just how weird Hollywood can be because there's one man who lives in that exact scenario and has been making Bronson-like direct-to-video films since 2017: Robert Bronzi .

Escape from Death Block 13

Who is robert bronzi.

Known by fans through three names — Bronzi, The Bronz, and Robert Bronzarelli — one man has managed to have cinephiles do double-takes for years, all because he shares a face with the late great Charles Bronson. The actor, whose real name is Robert Kovacs, rose to fame (so to speak), from a very humble background. The son of a coal miner, Kovacs was born outside of Budapest in 1956. Growing up, he took care of livestock and worked towards a career in carpentry, and in his spare time would watch American Westerns at the local theater. When a close friend noted that Bronzi had an uncanny resemblance to Bronson, Kovacs went all in to become Robert Bronzi; styling his hair and growing a mustache like the famed actor, completing the look. He took acting classes, and when he didn't get his money back on those classes, he began working in Wild West shows , where he further developed his riding skills alongside learning how to perform stunt work.

Robert Bronzi Was Well Aware of His Resemblance to Charles Bronson

So this director walks into a Spanish bar... no, it's not a joke, it's real. Director Rene Perez walks into a bar in Spain and sees a photo of Charles Bronson on the wall. Unable to place which film the photo was from, he asked the bartender who said that was Bronzi. Perez was intrigued and met with Bronzi to float the idea of building entire movies centered on Bronzi playing Bronson-like characters. It turns out that Bronzi had already been working as a Charles Bronson impersonator for kid's parties and events, so he was up for the challenge.

Charles Bronson Got His First Acting Gig Because He Could Burp on Command

Before we get too far ahead in the Bronzinator's ascent in some C-movies, let's flesh out Perez's idea a bit more. As it is known, Perez deals in direct-to-video releases, and getting any recognizable face attached to your film is gold. The king of the practice is producer Randall Emmett , whose "geezer teasers" bring in big names like Steven Seagal ( Mercenary for Justice ), Bruce Willis ( Survive the Night ), and Nicolas Cage (the infamous The Wicker Man remake) for appearances in his movies, simply to have a marquee name that catches the eye of those going through video-on-demand lists. But in the absence of Bronson, Perez brought in the next best thing with Bronzi, as his geezer star face for Bronson-like characters . For reference, think less The Magnificent Seven or Once Upon a Time in the West , and more Family of Cops III: Under Suspicion — or Death Wish XXV: Seriously Wishing for Death Here, Kill Me Already .

How Did the Hungarian Charles Bronson Get Into Movies?

Perez flew Bronzi from Spain to America for his first film, 2017's From Hell to the Wild West , playing a man on the hunt for a psychotic killer in the American frontier who might just be Jack the Ripper. The acting is stiff and awkward, and expressing pain and anguish does indeed result in believable pain and anguish (from those watching this film for work). The dialogue is stilted, but that isn't necessarily all on Bronzi, as his thick Hungarian accent prompted Perez to have his lines dubbed . Sweet deal, actually, with Bronzi simply having to stand all Bronson-like while someone else does his dialogue. Perez and Bronzi worked on three more films together: 2018's Death Kiss , 2019's Once Upon a Time in Deadwood , ​​and​​​ ​​ Cry Havoc in 2020. Death Kiss earns bonus points as being perhaps the most Bronson-like of the Bronson-like films , where a vigilante with a mysterious past protects and saves a young mom and her child. So pseudo- Death Wish , but with a great tagline in "Justice has a familiar face," which is quite clever. And to top it off, Daniel Baldwin , as if you weren't already stoked beyond belief about the film, stars as well.

Bronzi would move on from Perez to — ahem — star in films like Escape from Death Block 13 as a tough, wrongly convicted inmate; The Gardener as a tough gardener who uses his old skills to protect the family he works for from home invaders; and Exorcist Vengeance , where he plays Father Jozsef, a tough priest given the job of calling out a murderous demon from a variety of suspects. In doing so, Bronzi elevated his acting acumen by looking and being tough , but this time in different professions. The Bronzi Express shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon either, with not one, not two, but six upcoming films in varying degrees of production. If you're a gambler of sorts, the smart money is on Bronzi's characters bearing the adjective "tough."

So take a good, hard look at yourself in the mirror, see who you look like from Hollywood's long history , and remember the lessons the Mighty Bronz has taught us. Acting ability? Don't need it. Is enunciation unhindered by thick European accents? Tosh, please. Simply put your picture up in a local watering hole and wait for your call to the big leagues. Because if it can happen for Bronzi, it damn well can happen for you too. Or, if you're reading this article and happen to be searching for a celebrity lookalike, yours truly is available for your Brad Pitt -like feature films. Sometimes you just need to bear the cross you've been given in life.

Escape from Death Block 13 is available to stream on Prime Video in the U.S.

Watch on Prime Video

site categories

Donald glover addresses rumor his schedule is holding up ‘community’ movie: “everyone is hating on me on the internet”.

• Tim Meadows, Jaboukie Young-White, Jamilah Rosemond & Jayson Lee Round Out Cast Of Michel Gondry-Pharrell Williams Musical

By Matt Grobar

Matt Grobar

Senior Film Reporter

More Stories By Matt

• Dave Callaham To Pen Next Godzilla-Kong Movie For Legendary
• Jeff Bridges, Dave Bautista, Bryan Cranston, Sam Elliott & More Set For Live-Action ‘Grendel’ Movie

EXCLUSIVE : Universal Pictures has rounded out the cast of its coming-of-age musical teaming director Michel Gondry and producer Pharrell Williams with four additions: Tim Meadows ( Dream Scenario ), Jaboukie Young-White ( C’mon C’mon ), Jamilah Rosemond ( Rustin ) and Jayson Lee ( 61st Street ).

Details as to the roles of the newcomers are under wraps, as all roles so far have been. Set in Virginia Beach in the summer of 1977, the untitled film is inspired by the neighborhood where Williams grew up, and its Atlantis Apartments, in particular.

Related Stories

Jeff Bridges, Dave Bautista, Bryan Cranston, Sam Elliott & More Set For Live-Action ‘Grendel’ Movie

New ‘Jurassic World’ Movie At Universal And Amblin Sets Manuel Garcia-Rulfo In Leading Role

Written by Martin Hynes and Steven Levenson, the musical will be produced by Williams and Mimi Valdés for i am OTHER, as well as Gil Netter for Gil Netter Productions. Universal’s Senior Vice President of Production Development Ryan Jones and Director of Production Development Christine Sun are overseeing the project for the studio.

Recently seen reprising in Paramount’s Mean Girls musical, Meadows’s other notable credits of late include the Nicolas Cage comedy Dream Scenario , as well as The Goldbergs and other series.

White has been seen on series like Rap Sh!t and Only Murders in the Building , as well as in films like Mike Mills’s C’mon C’mon .

In addition to George C. Wolfe’s Rustin , Rosemond has appeared in Peacock’s The Best Man: The Final Chapters . Some of her other credits include Bel-Air , Power Book III , and The Equalizer .

Most recently, Lee starred in the Showtime feature Heist 88 and recurred on 61st Street opposite Courtney B. Vance. Meadows is repped by Reliant Talent Agency and Brillstein Entertainment Partners; White by WME, 3 Arts Entertainment, and Ginsburg Daniels Kallis; Rosemond by Stewart Talent and TM Talent Management; and Lee by Lasher Group and Gray Talent Group.

Must Read Stories

‘kingdom of the planet of the apes’ reigns with $52m-$55m opening frame.

Sarah Snook Inks For 2025 Broadway Run Of West End’s ‘Picture Of Dorian Gray’

Producers ax first preview of tom holland’s ‘romeo & juliet’ in london, gina carano hit back at disney’s motion to dismiss suit: “personal political beliefs”.

Subscribe to Deadline Breaking News Alerts and keep your inbox happy.

Read More About:

No comments.

Deadline is a part of Penske Media Corporation. © 2024 Deadline Hollywood, LLC. All Rights Reserved.