The Equalizer review: Denzel Washington's so-so TV-to-film thriller

Director: Antoine Fuqua; Screenwriter: Richard Wenk; Starring: Denzel Washington, Marton Csokas, Chloë Grace Moretz, Bill Pullman, Melissa Leo; Running time: 132 mins; Certificate: 15

Edward Woodward stepping purposefully out of a cloud of dry ice to the steady beat of a synthesizer... the intro to The Equalizer is a defining snippet of '80s TV, tapping directly into the yuppie angst of New Yorkers caught in a terrifying wave of street crime. 30 years on, there is only a distant echo of all that in this film version. Better to think of it as a Denzel Washington movie, a so-so effort that would have been a lot slicker if his old cohort Tony Scott had been at the helm.

Director Antoine Fuqua has yet to equal his 2001 cop drama Training Day in marrying psychological depth with visceral impact. He also benefitted from Washington's Oscar-winning study in uniformed criminality and if it wasn't for the actor's natural charisma, here, as Robert McCall, this would be a very dry trawl through the city (now Boston, for no obvious reason). Chloë Grace Moretz is wasted in a small role as a hooker who draws McCall back into a life he left behind, using his special ops training to scrub out the kingpins and corrupt cops who prey on the vulnerable.

More's the pity because Fuqua sets up a nice dynamic between the two who frequent the same late-night diner, framing their conversations with a visual nod to Edward Hopper's Nighthawks canvas. Inevitably, McCall finds himself having to defend her honour, taking a few hours off from his job at the US equivalent of B&Q to knock some Russian heads together. That's the cue for psychotic fixer Teddy (Marton Coskas) to fly in from Moscow and reassert some authority on behalf of mysterious mob boss Pushkin (Vladimir Kulich).

While there are bursts of action, the film doesn't gather momentum until Teddy comes knocking but Csokas threatens to swamp the screen with so much venom. The street-level realism of the original series is sacrificed in favour of grand villainy and amped-up scenes of violence. Washington also has a fight on his hands to retain credibility as he goes about his business like a one-man A-Team – a different show altogether.

Better to think of it as a Denzel Washington movie, a so-so effort that would have been a lot slicker if his old cohort Tony Scott had been at the helm.

Setting his watch to measure his efficiency in killing people turns it into a game, undermining the basic decency that should set 'The Equalizer' apart from his prey. Compared with Liam Neeson, another midlife crime-fighter in A Walk Among the Tombstones (released just a week before this), McCall is crudely drawn. Certainly, Woodward's stiff-upper-lipped Equalizer would not have indulged in such nonsense.

For moviegoers who simply want a quick shot of adrenaline, the final showdown delivers plenty of that – with an inventive use of domestic hardware – and Fuqua even remembers to add a little suspense. However, he should have turned the handle on that vice much earlier on and he could have put the cutters to use as well, to trim down the preamble. When it comes to structure and characterisation, there is a serious lack of discipline that means the film hangs loose like middle-aged spread.

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