We saw The Equalizer the other day, and hot-darn was it good. Like, really good. So good that you'll be walking around in slow-motion for the rest of the day because if it looks cool on Denzel Washington, it'll look cool on you. But we digress, let's focus on the most important thing – how metal is it? Well, read on to find out (but not in slow-motion – it'll take you ages):
1. Denzel Washington is in it
Ok, fair enough, you may not associate Denzel with metal. When we think of Denzel, the song that instantly comes to mind is ‘Still D.R.E’, because of that “You’re in da office, baby” scene in Training Day. But when you think about it, Denzel is still metal because he’s just about the coolest man on planet earth, and if that’s not metal, we don’t know what is.
2. His character is the biggest badass to have ever lived
You think Liam Neeson in Taken is hard? Wait until you see Denz in this one. He’s so hard that at no point in the entire movie do you ever fear for his safety. He can be faced with an army of people with guns when all he’s got is a corkscrew, and he’ll merk them, guaranteed. DO NOT MESS with him, it’s pointless.
Not the corkscrew – that definitely is very pointy, we’re talking about the whole ‘messing with him’ thing.
3. The bad guy is one of the best bad guys we’ve ever seen
A good action film needs a good bad guy, and Martin Csokas as Teddy is the biggest arsehole on planet Earth. If you can ignore his wussy name, then you’re in for a whirlwind of screaming, punching, strangling, shooting and just generally strutting about the place being a top-tier bastard – he’s ace. If Martin Csokas could just play bad guys from now on that would be fantastic, thank you very much.
4. There is the biggest explosion halfway through for no reason whatsoever
Okay, we guess it’s not for no reason, but it’s still so unbelievably OTT that it feels completely out of place. Not that we were complaining though – explosions are fun and great. Especially when they go on for this long – just when you think it’s finished, something else explodes. Oh and obviously Denzel Washington walks away from the whole thing in slow motion without so much as a scratch or a mark on his shirt.
5. Denzel uses lots of METAL things to kill people
The cool thing about Denzel in this film is that he doesn’t just stick with guns. Sometimes he might like to use some barbed wire, or a microwave, hell, he even uses a power drill at one point. He’s inventive in his dispatch techniques. The only real constant is that they’re all metal. PARTICULARLY THE SLEDGEHAMMER.
6. He loves dressing in black
When you think of metal, you think of black. We can’t seem to imagine Venom or Dimmu Borgir wearing pink fluffy boots and rainbow t-shirts – it’s black all the way. Which is something Denz-Dog adheres to in The Equalizer. But only once he decides to start taking revenge of course – it’s a handy visual clue to let the audience know that DENZEL MEANS FUCKING BUSINESS NOW OKAY?
7. There’s a bit at the end which looks like something straight out of a bad metalcore video
Right at the end, there’s a bit where Denzel comes round the corner in slow-motion and it’s raining. Okay, it’s not raining, the fire-sprinklers are on, but it looks like it’s raining. This is something that bands like to do in their videos sometimes, isn’t it. You know, like this one?
8. At one point Denzel kills five people in 19 seconds
He likes to do this thing where he sets the timer on his watch before killing loads of people. Not sure why he does this, but it’s quite fun isn’t it? There’s a bit where he ‘does in’ a load of people in around 19 seconds. One of those people he ‘does in’ with a SHOT GLASS. It’s mental. It’s METAL. Well, that’s glass, but you get our drift.
9. The end scene is set in B&Q
Or the American version of B&Q at least. Think of all the metal things you can find in a B&Q. We bet you can even buy a Black Sabbath CD or something, right? They always have some random CDs up by the tills…
10. Erm, Trenchmouth had an album called ‘Volumes, Amplifiers, Equalizers?
Yeah? Bye.
The Equalizer is out on Friday.
