“Change your world.”

Justin’s rating: Don’t ever mess with a guy who reads 100 books

Justin’s review: As I plow through my middle age era, I find myself inwardly applauding the popularity and proliferation of “old man action movies.” You know, the ones where a has-been action star now in his 50s or 60s comes back with a vengeance as some grizzled semi-retired dude with skillz and a god mode.

For Denzel Washington — an actor that I admire greatly — he didn’t let his 58th birthday stop him from jumping into the first of three Equalizers. It’s not that novel of a concept, a little bit of a “What if John Wick was a really nice and protective guy at heart who watched a whole lot of the A-Team when he was growing up?” But you can do an old thing right (in more ways than one) and still be pretty satisfying.

Washington is Robert McCall, a retired special forces officer who’s struggling with OCD (he’s very neat and times various tasks) and probably some PTSD as well. He quietly works at a big hardware store and goes about the twilight of his life without making any waves. However, he is well-liked, holds to old-fashioned morals, and has a penchant for taking younger people under his wing to mentor.

One of these is a hefty guy at his work angling for a security guard post. Another is an underage girl named Alina (Chloë Grace Moretz in a fantastic role) who he figures out is being forced into prostitution by some pretty bad guys. When Alina shows up in the hospital all battered, Robert decides it’s time to stop sitting on the sidelines and fight for justice in a dark world.

Of course, when he goes to bat for his friend, Robert doesn’t exactly realize that he’s going to be taking on the whole Russian mob. To his credit, though, when he does find out, that doesn’t deter him. It’s a job that’s got to be seen through to the very end, and he’s got the determination to do it.

I like to think that Denzel Washington got to infuse some of his own personality and faith into Robert, because the character is not your normal amoral killing machine. He kills, yes, but not before he offers people a choice to become better and step off the vile path they’ve been traveling. He kills to protect, not to satisfy his own bloodlust or avenge a puppy, and that makes a huge difference in the tone.

But it’s not as if The Equalizer shies away from showing all the action and violence. Everyone thinks that Robert is over the hill, and he’ll use even that to his advantage before he takes out rooms full of very bad people, including a nasty Russian ex-secret police dude named, er, Teddy.* The fights are fun and escalate accordingly, and the astonishment of the villains doesn’t get old even if we’ve seen that sort of thing a hundred times before.

Between the action are nice character building moments and a pounding tension driven by a Harry Gregson-Williams soundtrack. It’s a slower flick than some of the other Old Man Action Movies, perhaps even less fun. But The Equalizer has some weight to it that I like, a drive for justice because, as McCall says, he saw something wrong he could do something about.

Maybe it’s a little too much in love with slow motion and drawing out scenes, but I generally enjoyed this revenge flick with a moral center.

*Want to take another pass on the bad guy’s name there, writers? No? Oh well.

Intermission!

• “I’m a human, not a rabbit.”
• Robert’s apartment is exceedingly neat and tidy, a nice extension of his personality
• “I was a pip.”
• “The old man met his greatest adversary just when he thought that part of his life was over.”
• “Don’t doubt yourself, son. Doubt kills.”
• “You don’t look like a Bob. You look like a Robert.”
• I’m starting to think that all of Robert’s books have to do with his life
• Robert straightening up the objects on the Russian mobster’s desk
• “Sixteen seconds.”
• Homemade wound care looks gross yet sanitary!
• “You had a nice funeral, in case you were wondering.”
• “Basically, he’s a sociopath with a business card.”
• “He didn’t come for help. He came for permission.”
• That’s a fun improvised gas chamber
• Money by the wheelbarrow
• “What do you see when you look at me?”
• Surprise Bill Pullman cameo!