Prior to The Equalizer 2, Denzel Washington had never made a sequel.

Prior to The Equalizer 2, Denzel Washington had never made a sequel. It says something that Robert McCall is the first onscreen character Washington ever agreed to reprise: While the actor has always turned in full performances, it very much feels like he has found his home within the role of the former U.S. Marine and DIA agent. Since the first entry in the vigilante action series reunited Washington with Antoine Fuqua (who directed him to his second Oscar in Training Day), The Equalizer has always gone hard and delivered with increasing ferocity. The Equalizer 3 is the final destination on a nearly decade-long journey for the filmmaker and his leading man – and it’s a bloody, satisfying, and deftly crafted conclusion right out of the gate.

Protecting a Community Under Siege

Although McCall has officially given up his life as a government assassin, injustice continues to cross his radar, and he remains unable to ignore it. After taking a bullet while facing off against a cartel in Southern Italy, he’s rescued by a Good Samaritan and brought to a coastal village to recuperate. It’s not long before McCall spots the signs of a community under the oppressive and violent fist of local crime bosses. Of course, the small fish have bigger fish bosses, who happen to be the Sicilian mafia. All hell breaks loose as McCall does what he needs to do to protect his new friends and their livelihoods.

A Reunion of Talent

Part of his plan for beating the mob involves tipping off CIA agent Emma Collins (Dakota Fanning), bringing Washington and Fanning back together nearly 20 years after they co-starred in Man on Fire. The Equalizer 3 serves as a companion piece to that Tony Scott actioner as much as it does a capstone to McCall’s arc: There is a familiarity to Washington and Fanning’s interaction that feels effortless and entirely believable. Here they are two strangers observing each other in the field but, even sitting together in a cafe, it’s easy to see they know every inch of each other. It turns what could be a functional interaction into something way more connected, even though they share a relatively small amount of screentime in the same physical space.

Washington appears more at ease in McCall’s skin than ever, despite the internal battle he’s going through. His ability to manifest that in both moments of calm (such as his ritualistic setting of his table in a cafe) and moments of violence (such as picking off bad guys in a dark alley) is incredible. There is a stillness in the intense chaos that spotlights how centered McCall is. It’s also interesting to see that the character, who has always dispensed justice with contained and almost indifferent rage, feels like there’s more of a personal stake in his actions. Is this Washington’s best work? No, but it’s a great performance hanging on the frame of another tight script by Richard Wenk, and it’s undoubtedly his best turn in the franchise.

The locale offers a different aesthetic, from tone to optics, than the first two films, and while something of a risk, it’s a welcome change that works in The Equalizer 3’s favor. Seeing McCall so at home and as a fish out of water offers a fundamental dynamic that the previous entries simply couldn’t. The choice to bring on three-time Oscar-winning cinematographer Robert Richardson is inspired; his use of rich, deep reds, earthy tones, shadows, and deep, dark blacks add a texture and lusciousness that contrasts the cold cityscapes of the first two Equalizers. And while those previous films delivered impressive action sequences, The Equalizer 3 contains some of 2023’s best action – no meager feat in the year of John Wick: Chapter 4 and Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning. It’s a more traditional, but no less creative, display of skills.