September 11, 2025 • 54 mins
In our final entry our the Antoine Fuqua retrospective, "The Equalizer," we break down the film's key scenes and discuss its impact on the action genre. Tune in as we explore the film's narrative, character development, and Fuqua's directorial choices.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to the NED party.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
You have entered once again into the House of Fuquah.
Here the latest saga exploring the works of a director,
this one being Antoine Fuquah. Welcome as we continue this
exploration with The Equalizer, a re teeming of Denzel Washington
with Antoine Fuquah, a teaming we're familiar with from our
(00:41):
discussion about Training Day last week. And who is the
we here? Well, Gosh, I am John the Equalizer of
this podcast, and I'm joined by the two dirty Cops,
Tristan Medell and Darren Moser, who I insist must pay
you back with a quality piece of entertainment discussing this
film to make up for burning your kitchen. So, gentlemen,
(01:03):
here we are at the Action powerhouse film The Equalizer.
It was released in twenty fourteen, and it was a
rebirth in many ways because it was based loosely on
a TV show of the same name from the nineteen
eighties that yours truly might have grown up watching. And
(01:24):
I can say that, you know, I did not go
see this in the theater because I was one of
those people that was like, how can you remix the Equalizer?
That's a take for TV show. I was going through
one of those phases as so many of us do. But, gentlemen,
what was your first encounter? I will kick off with you, Darren.
Your first encounter was The Equalizer here on House Life.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
You're not gonna like it because it's going to feel
very modern and terrible. Because if you asked me if
I had seen this movie, the answer would be no,
and also yes, this is I'm pretty sure I did
not ever sit down and watch, but I came across
like a series of reels online that were like best
(02:09):
little bits of the Equalizer. So I'd seen lots of
little bits, not really knowing what Denzil movie this was from,
because obviously I recognized him. So that's the level of
engagement I had when I sat down to watch it
this weekend and it all clicked. I'm like, oh, this
is the movie that you know, the not Home Depot
(02:31):
attack is happening at and all of that. So I
won't say it spoiled it because I hadn't remembered those
scenes enough to have it all fled back. But as
they each came up, it was like, Okay, there's this one,
but I had the whole plot now, like there's nothing
(02:52):
of the diner and the best of clips, you know,
you don't know what's happening there, although when he turns
off the line as the as the you know van
goes by is a great shot in moment. So all
that to say, this was really my first time on
seeing the story, and yeah, I want to say overall
(03:13):
this movie is a great does a great job of
showing and not telling, especially when it doesn't even show,
like like the moment where he takes the hammer and
like the next shot is him coming back and putting
it away as he wipes it off. You don't even
know what happened to that guy specifically, but you know
(03:35):
what you do, Yeah, you do.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
So you're giving context clues as they might are.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
Yes, And honestly, we don't need to see the exact
of that. Anything we could think of is like we're
just like, oh that he's dead, like and he had
it coming and it was very painful and and he
got the ring back. That is all that matters.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
So respecting personal property is in important. You really you
need to. You need to keep in mind that when
a man cares about something, he's going to care about
it deeply. So Tristan, your first encounter with the Equalizer?
Did you did well? I need to know. Did your
father have old videotapes of Edward Woodward as the Equalizer
(04:19):
and he showed them to you to prep for this film.
Speaker 4 (04:22):
I was interesting because when we started talking about doing
Fuquah the House of Fuquah, and we started talking about
which movies we were going to tackle, and we decided
to do the order that we're doing. And you brought
up that The Equalizer was a TV show And I
said to you, what when I had literally never heard
(04:42):
about it ever, not a passing reference, not an ad,
not a something a blockbuster or not an old TV guide, nothing, nothing.
So I had no idea that this existed. But actually,
in doing research for this podcast, I did see that
there are a lot of homages to the TV show.
(05:03):
Oh yeah, within the movie. Oh yes, yes there are.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
It is It's very see. What I think is very
cool about it is that Fuquah takes the care to
bake those homages in without calling specific attention to them.
There's no moment as somebody who grew up watching the show.
And I mean I listen, I'm not like four hundred
years old. I was a kid when the show was on.
But there are little things baked in that every so
(05:27):
often somebody would point out and be like, oh yeah,
that's the car from the show. Is like, oh yeah,
I remember that. Like that sort of thing as opposed
to like a hit you over the head with a
hammer and wipe it off sort of homage reference that
you might get. So this movie comes out to you know,
I would say casting Denzel is a surprising move. This
(05:50):
isn't necessarily a role that before he was in it,
I would have expected Denzel Washington to inhabit. This isn't
the type of role that really jumps out in the
Denzel Washington body of work necessarily.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
Of the other are the avenging age had you not
seen Man on Fire?
Speaker 2 (06:08):
I had not seen Man on Fire at that point,
and unfortunately many people had not seen Man Man on
Fire by this point. So you know, give and take
there on that one. Give me a break. You know,
for a fact, I hadn't seen Man on Fire.
Speaker 4 (06:21):
But I just know I forgott until you mentioned it.
I did. I forgot that because I just want to
say that, like, watching this, I'm like, y, do you
know who else was a big fan of men on fire,
Antoine Fuqua.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Yes, yes, and but but that's the thing is overall,
you don't really see Denzel Washington as a John Wick
style avenger of wrongs. Uh, but Darren, you go in,
Denzel's not a young man when this comes out. But
you know, he's not like ready for retirement or anything,
but he's not a young man. Did you have any
(06:55):
trouble believing Denzel when he was in those moments being
the action star that he needed to be. Did you
ever have a moment where you said, I don't really
buy this.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
No, I really was fully on board with this character.
And maybe it was the watch, the fact that he's
kind of almost setting up his you know, oh, my
personal best in this situation is sixteen seconds or aka,
I have about sixteen seconds of old man energy to
take out these punks, and I better you know, tomize
(07:30):
my attack. So again, we don't see flashbacks of his
glory days. We don't see a lot of the pieces.
There's a lot of subtlety of again you know, not
not telling, but you can tell that this is a
dangerous man, and they really portrayed it, I think very
(07:51):
convincingly that yeah, I totally buy every moment. He's very smart,
he's very surgical. It's not a gun's blazing.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
You know.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
He actually rarely.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Kills with the gun.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
He kills with the real gun, or that he kills
with the gun.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Oh okay, I was.
Speaker 4 (08:10):
He never kills anybody with a gun except for except
for the first guy. Well like when he's when he's
holding that's he's actually making the other guy fire the gun.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
Oh I see he's co opting someone else's gun.
Speaker 4 (08:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
So yeah.
Speaker 4 (08:25):
Also, I just technically.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
He pulled the trigger under my finger, so technically I
I didn't shoot him.
Speaker 4 (08:32):
We can't skip over the genius that Darren just dropped
because I need to use sixteen seconds of old man
energy somewhere somehow. I don't know if it's gonna be
the title of my autobiography. It's I don't know if
I'm gonna have to wait that long, but it's gonna be.
I'm gonna use that somehow. I'm stealing that darm No.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
That was that was a great and then he like
overshot it. He's like, oh I was like nineteen seconds slower. Okay,
I get work to improve, Denzel, work to improve, you know,
but no, so I I think, yeah, they they nailed
that part of the character. I felt like this was
a guy who's seen some stuff and done some stuff.
(09:15):
So I was fully on board with that past coming out.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
And we've seen that. It's a trope.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
We've seen that so many times. It's Rocky, it's you know,
so many other things where they have a side to
them that is shaped by war and conflict and they
just want peace and they bring that out into the forefront.
I'm not saying this is a copy of Rocky or
something like that, you know, the main character that has
a You're right, too many I'm visualizing Rambo. And both
(09:50):
John and I were like, what Rambo in a box? Rockey,
It's a movie I might want to see. I'm just
they're played by the same actor. Okay, so I will
mix and he also and they both begin with R.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
He also played Kobreddy. But you're not throwing Cobra around.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
I'm going to blank that movie out. But yes, so Rambo,
That's what I totally said. Guys, yeah, that person with
a past. So I was digging it.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
So Tristan, you know something you you drew attention to
was Darren you know, Haha. The sixteen seconds of old
Man energy, But it's really the subtlety of it. There
seems to be an economy that's built into the action scenes.
It would have been very easy for somebody to have
a stunt double come in and have super high energy
(10:39):
action scenes in those fights. Do you think that it's
effective to have somebody within economy of motion? Did it
make it stand out as an action film in any
way for you, in the way that Denzel inhabited it physically?
Speaker 4 (10:54):
Well, when this movie came out, we were at the
peak of Shaky Kim and I feel like this was
a nice respite from that, where if you looked at
the cinematography, and I have a point I'm coming back
to your question, but if you look at the cinematography
of it, it's very classical in the way that it's shot.
(11:14):
It's you see everything. There's no obfuscation. It's not whip
there's no whippans, there's no extreme I mean, I was
about to say extreme closeups, but there's a lot of
extreme closeups, but there's there's nothing that's hiding the action.
There's no green grass effect in this and I really
appreciated that. And one of the one of the things
that you you have to do when you shoot it
(11:37):
that way is you have to make your action legible
as well, because you can't just have frantic whaling when
you can see everything's on screen. And so when you
show that Denzel, because like right off the bat they
show that Denzel is no spring chicken anymore. Like you
you see him with gray hair at the very top
of the movie and he's shaving it off, and it's
(11:59):
to remind the audience that, like, Denzel is not ageless,
even though we kind of picture him as as ageless,
he's not. He's he's getting older. And I love that
he said that he was a buck ninety one night,
a buck ninety and I literally said out loud. I
was like bs and what they called it out at
the end. But regardless, I'm like, I think the action
(12:21):
style was very refreshing for this type of movie, because
when you have something that like John Wick that came
out at the same time, like it's it's unrealistic gunfighting,
and that's not a criticism, it's just is what it is.
And this one went in a different direction where it's
not Jason Bourne or Batman or anything like that, Like
this is a guy who is trained to take out
(12:43):
people as quickly and efficiently as possible. There's no flare
to it, he just does it. And I think that
was that mixed with the type of cinematography really benefited
this picture.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Yeah, and for the director of photography, it's Mario forat Fiore.
I'm always going to mess up his last name. But
he had worked with Fuquah on training Day. Between training
Day and now, he had worked with Michael Bay on
the Island. He had worked with Fuquah again on Tears
of the Sun. He had worked well of course, famously
(13:17):
wins an Oscar for his work on Avatar with James
Cameron and comes back around to Fuquah eventually and does
three in a row with Fuqua starting with this.
Speaker 4 (13:28):
And he also did Smoking Aces, And anybody who's seen
that film knows that this cinematographer, like Fiori, knows how
to do whippans, he knows how to do fastands, shaky
camp because Smoking Aces is basically green grass on crack.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
But that's that's sort of what I'm building to, is it.
I think it exhibits a real basically, it underlines the
fact that it's a real choice of the director and
the DP to say this is the style of this
movie and we are going to stick to it, because
it would have been so easy to fall back on, oh,
I know how to shoot this. They obviously had conferences
(14:07):
where they said, how are we going to break this down? Now?
In terms of breaking things down, Darren, this movie is
not an hour and a half. It takes its time
getting where it's going. And my question to you, I
usually toss this to Tristan first, but I'll toss it
to you. Did you have any issue with the editing,
with the pace of the film. Do you feel that
(14:29):
it took the right amount of time to get where
it was going or do you think that it took
too long to get to where it was going?
Speaker 3 (14:36):
First, I just want to cap off what we said
about Denzel's age. I just looked it up and at
the time that this movie came out, he was sixty.
That is incredible.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
But yes, hey, I'm not that far off from it.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
I'm just saying I'm just he did a great job.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
I feel Prinzil But yeah, with the I don't know.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
I'm probably not the best one to answer this because
I just because of my schedule ended up watching this
in two chunks. Anyway, I didn't have the full time
to sit down, so I had a break in the middle,
but nothing jumped out. It is a bit of a
slow burn before we get to you know, but kicking
(15:21):
Denzel like a while goes into this and even set
up for the bad guy, you know it. I mean,
I think if I had to describe it in one word,
it is slow burn.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
It is definitely that it is. It's one hundred and
thirty two minutes and I.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
Think this built every single one of them.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Well, I mean the first action see the first action
sequence is about thirty minutes in. I think it ends.
The first action sequence ends around thirty two or thirty
three minutes into the film. And so Tristan, you know,
let's knock it over to you. You love to talk
about editing, and I think it's all you love to
talk about. I think this is the only reason you
(16:03):
podcast on this show. But did you you felt every
second of this? Did you sit there watching this criticiz like,
what were you going in your head saying, okay, cut this,
chop that or was it more in retrospect?
Speaker 4 (16:16):
No, it was it was like as I was watching it.
I was just like, oh, good lord, no, get rid
of this scene, get rid of this take cut this down.
I was. I was fine with a slow burn at
the beginning. I really was, Like when you mentioned that
the first action scene wasn't until half an hour in,
I was like, okay, all right, cool, all right. I
was just kind of like trying to vibe with it,
(16:36):
just like, all right, it's a slow burn. It's cool.
We're doing a lot of character work, we're building the world,
we're building him. I was fine with it. But then
towards the end of the second act, I was just
crawling out of my skin. I was like, good lord,
I have so much left of this movie. And then
(16:57):
when I finished it, like I yelled at my my
wife didn't watch it with me. She was off doing
something else and the kids weren't home so I could
actually watch it without headphones. But like, at the end
of this movie, I was like, good lord, this movie
had no business being as long as it was no
business Like you could, I say this without exaggeration, you
(17:18):
could trim this down by half an hour easy.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
I don't know that I would agree about half an hour.
Speaker 4 (17:25):
I truly believe that, like you could get this at
one forty five one point fifty, and I truly believe
that that would be a primo. I think run Time could.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
But whether or not I should see.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
An aspect of this is the circling sharks of the
two antagonists and protagonists as they draw closer to their
final battle. And if you mess with that timing too much,
see it shifts.
Speaker 4 (17:53):
It a bit.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
I get what you're saying, Tristan, I don't agree with
it is the best way I get. I can put
it specifically, becase cause of the fact that I know
that if I were to look at this, say the
way Soderberg looked at her, I'd be like, I can
get this done in ninety minutes. Okay, we're gonna cut
the kitchen burning seating, We're gonna cut the corrupt cops
with one of the Wallbergers. We're gonna cut. We're gonna
just gonna go down. We're just gonna But what I
(18:16):
admire and respect about the movie is actually the fact
that it sets up specifically why and how he expresses
how he cares so much about certain people.
Speaker 4 (18:28):
I'm I might for that, I'm all for I really
am to keep the opening, keep the first thirty minutes exactly.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
I'm not I'm not talking about just the opening. I'm
talking about the guy who's going up for security guard.
That it shows him not just expressing his love for
somebody by kicking somebody's butt. He shows up and he said, oh,
I'm gonna help clean up the kitchen. You see, this
guy has this circle of people and he he loves
(18:54):
and does everything for them, not just you know, vigilante
justice sort of thing. Assuming that I would cut that,
I am actually I am assuming because I don't. Well,
then give me an example of what you would cut,
because I wouldn't cut anything about the crazy mob guy
going through and intimidating people and beating up irishman. And
(19:15):
I wouldn't you know, you know, any of that stuff
would be cut. Are you talking about you would simply
cut in the back part of the movie?
Speaker 4 (19:22):
I would. I would completely remove the the robber at
a at not home depot, Completely remove that storyline, excize
it completely. There's no business for it being there. In fact,
I think it actually was a detriment to the movie,
not just because of its length. I actually had a
problem with that scene because when he's you know, like
(19:42):
when he confronts the mob. He's confronting the mob because
a person that he cares about is in trouble and
he wants to release her from the servitude. She's an
underage prostitute who's basically in sex trafficking and she can't
get out on own and she can't get out so
she isn't sex trafficking, and and so he's trying to
get her out like that, I get that, And then
(20:04):
there and then the next scene was like dirty cops
taking advantage of hardworking people, and him, as a former
law enforcement you know person, you know that means something
to him. Keep it, love it. But then when the
when basically a tweaker comes and robs a woman at
gunpoint and steals her ring, I feel like it's a
step too far to when he like he's a vigilante already,
(20:29):
but like it was a step too far because the
danger was over, that woman was no longer in danger,
she lost a ring. I'm sorry, crap happens. But then
we're supposed to believe that because this guy was brutally
murdered with a sledgehammer because he robbed a home depot,
you know, like that, it took up time. It was
(20:49):
confusing about the character because like at first, like my
first reaction to it was, oh, damn, is this like
Taxi Driver? Like is he like like the end of
Taxi Driver where you're just like, oh, did he get
a taste for this? He's just gonna look for more blood?
Like is it no longer about the victim anymore? Is
it just about the getting the quote unquote justice? Like
(21:11):
So that scene was really confusing to me, and I
think it was a detriment towards his character. And then
like when we then as we move on from that,
like I wouldn't really maybe I would. Mostly I would
get rid of Kosca's murder of that poor girl that
went on way too long. I would. I would excize
it completely. I don't think it was necessary. We already
(21:31):
know that he's a bad guy. He's an evil guy.
But I would condense it a great deal if someone
was like forcing me to keep it, and then from
there on out, I would just trim scenes down. I
would just condense, And I really I really think that
you could, you could excise thirty twenty minutes minimum.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
I don't know that I would cut the not Home
depot thing, just because I do think that there is
a moment when he he takes his first you know,
his first vengeance on the room full of guys, the
twenty eight seconds of killing spree where he's sitting down
(22:10):
and he's talking the guy through and about thirty seconds
you're going to die and was this worth ninety eight
hundred dollars? And he has a moment where he puts
his head down and I forget exactly what he says,
but he's like, he basically says something along the lines
of like I'm sorry, Like you can see him. I
think you're right. He basically, once he's turned on, that's
just who he is going forward. And I think that
(22:33):
does show that he the whole reason he doesn't want
to get involved in it is because he knows what.
Like when he goes to the door and he opens
the door and he closes it, and he opens and
he closes it, it's because he's sitting there he's like, what,
I can't he can't operate, you know, flipping between states.
It's once he's on, he's on. And I think that
(22:55):
the movie maybe doesn't do a clear enough job of saying, well,
this is where he goes too far. It just shows
the guy has just entered that mode and he's just
that's just who he's gonna be until the end. And
like it, basically every time it gets tripped, it's just
going to happen. But you know, maybe to your point,
maybe that's where it lacks some clarity in terms of,
(23:19):
you know, the where the character goes.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
Well, and I'll say, with you know, sledgehammer Guy or
whatever we're gonna call him, it did feel a little
contrived that in the background there was like a line
thrown in there of or actually, no, it's standing in
the background. It's Denzel says it where he's like, oh, yeah,
the cops talked about this guy and he shot someone
else and he's robbed other people. And it's like, oh,
(23:44):
I see what you're doing. Story, you're justifying it, because
if you had not had that line, it's straight up murder,
like you're you're you're trying to ease it of like, oh, look,
he's killed, he might kill again. You know, now we
have a reason for our vigilante to step into action.
I mean they even shoot that scene of him gearing
(24:08):
up for an attack, and the only reason he aborts
is because you know, a mom and daughter walk in
like which you know raises whole other things, Like you know,
imagine him straight up killing that guy right there at
the register like that would have been a very different scene.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
It would have been a very different scene. I mean.
The thing is, like I said, Tristan, it's it's not
that I it's not that I don't understand what you're saying.
Is that I just don't agree with it.
Speaker 4 (24:36):
Because that's cool, man, That's why we have this podcast.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
Oh no, no, no, no, no, no no. I'm building
to a point I betray this trust that we've built.
See the thing is, now we're spoiling everything. That's no fun. No,
I it's it's for the sake of a more direct
sort of way. I think is have you ever seen
the original Death Wish with Charles Bronson? Have either one
(25:00):
of you seen that? Ages ago, ages ago? Now, it's
not a good movie. I want to underline that. And
there's actually one point wherein I consider him to be
a reprehensible father. And I'm not going to even point
people to the movie or reference the scene, but if
you've seen it, I can tell you that you undoubtedly
got the creepies during a certain moment where you're like, oh, dude,
(25:22):
what are you doing talking to her like that? But
this is more along the lines of a death wish,
and I think that's the sort of thing where the
entire thing operates as this guy's gone off the deep end,
and so once he goes over the whole thing is
at what point what will finally make him stop doing
(25:43):
the thing that he's doing or will he learn to
pull back? Either way? So not high marks for the editing,
but did it destroy the suspense or not suspense? But
did it destroy the vibe of the movie enough to
work against the tension? And this is to U Tristi
that Fuqua is trying to build in those scenes, Like
(26:05):
was it something where by the end you just didn't
get into the action because it had burned up all
of its goodwill?
Speaker 4 (26:12):
Yeah, a little bit. Unfortunately, I feel like there was.
It kind of took me out of it, like because
it's so frustrated. As I was watching the latter half
that I was, I was drawn into how overstylized some
of the action scenes were, like when he destroys the
ship and we have basically a nuclear bomb go off
(26:35):
behind him. All I'm hearing is you know, like the
is the Saturday Night Live people's singing like cool guys
don't look at explosions, you know, Like it's such a
massive explosion and he's just walked. He's sauntering through it
in slow motion, on the edge of.
Speaker 3 (26:55):
The shockwave, Like, yeah, he's the edge.
Speaker 4 (26:59):
He he would go deaf, like he'd be blown to smither.
Reads like this is not something that you walk away from,
and so like it was shot in slow motion. And
then also like when we get towards the end and
he shoots Coskas with a with a nail gun and
then like the sprinklers go off and it's in super
slow motion for a very long time, and we're like, yes,
(27:22):
that's a really cool epic shot of him in the water.
I get it. But he I think it was Fuquan
not knowing when to cut back. Is like each one
of those things is cool on its own, but every
single time it lasted too long, and it just made
me think, Man, I've seen this before, and I've seen
(27:42):
it done better.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Well do you feel do you feel that the music
by Harry Gregson Williams help at all? Did that?
Speaker 4 (27:52):
It made me think about Man on Fire even more,
where Aaron I was like, you know what I want, Denzel,
I want a revenge store and get me Harry Griggson
freaking Williams.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
Okay, okay, Darren. You know for the music. Did the
music work for you? Did it contribute to the tension
building the action scenes, anything like that, or was it
just something you didn't really notice at all? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (28:17):
No, I'm seeing a lot of his list. There's a
lot of coworking with very big action movies, especially in
the nineties and two thousands. So yeah, it it drew
It drew me in because just like any sort of
action movie, knowing when to play the music and when
(28:39):
to have it be like that sound like they're sneaking
up the stairs or you hear the creaks of doors
or things like that. You know, that is also a
major component of music. It's not every beat has to
have a thing happening, like you know, you don't need
you don't need it everywhere. So I think the balance
they struck in the equalizer was really good. I'm not
(29:00):
going to talk about the end credits for the end
music because that felt a little I don't know what
was happening there. It was like you know what I expected, like,
you know, smash Mouth to come out or something, you know,
to play play it off. It was very music video
in the very last ten seconds. I don't know why. Uh.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
You know that is interesting because I know that in
the in the trailer they debuted a song by Eminem
with Sia. I think what the trailer was the debut
of a new song, and I forget the name of it.
I think it was like something before Fear or something
like that. Yeah, I think that Fuquah did make an
(29:46):
odd choice at the end there. I absolutely concede that,
But I think maybe you put your finger on it
that he's his music video roots just got the better of.
Speaker 3 (29:57):
Him, gots over, fearts over.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
That's what it is. That's that's over here man.
Speaker 3 (30:03):
That name.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
Yeah, you know. So you know what we haven't talked
about at this point is the supporting cast. So of course, Chloe,
Chloe Grace Moretz is there as as you know, the
first recipient of Robert's support on his revenge killing spree.
(30:25):
But Tristan, you know, do you feel that the supporting
cast is seen in this film or do you feel
that it's mainly just Denzel Washington and people floating in
to deliver lines to spur him forward.
Speaker 4 (30:38):
No, no, no, I think this is a I think
this is a solid supporting cast. Like I free and
love Martin Koscas. I absolutely love him. I think I
hope I'm pronouncing his name right. And also it was
fun to see David Harbor in this. I think it's
always a good time when David Harbor pops up. I'm
not the biggest fan of Chloe Grace Morets. I don't
(30:59):
know what it is. I think a little bit. I
know that she's a good actress and she's been acting
for such a long time, but it's a little of
irrational dislike. I think maybe it's her voice. I don't
dig on that vocal fry.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
That is she your Meryl Streep?
Speaker 4 (31:17):
She might be likely enough, like whenever I see her face,
I'm like, why which.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
Is not which? So the audience understands is no comment
on how she looks.
Speaker 4 (31:30):
No, I mean saying she's a very pretty woman.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
When he sees her in a role, it's like, I react.
This is why I made the reference when I write
when I react to Meryl Streep on a movie post.
For some unknown reason my first reaction is eugh, okay,
And even though I know fully well, fully well, she's
a great actress and everybody loves her and everything, for
some reason very deep in.
Speaker 4 (31:54):
My stupid it's it's the same exact thing. It's something
really really weird. It's it's uncon She's very talented, she
was freaking hilarious and thirty rock. She just got married,
So congratulations to her.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
But what a wonderful journey she's just taken.
Speaker 4 (32:11):
Yeah, So like, honestly, honestly, it's all me. It's all me,
and I don't know what it is. But one thing
that I thought was a little weird, Bill Pullman was there.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
Was that was a surprise. It was a little distracting
for like five lines, like it could have been anybody.
Speaker 4 (32:29):
It should have been anybody. I think that's the thing.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
No, there are no small roles, only small actors gentlemen,
and mister Pullman showed up and he delivered those five
lines with more skill than many other actors.
Speaker 4 (32:46):
Will Now, I freaking love Bill Pullman. He's an amazing actor.
But that's why it was so weird, because he was
the she wasn't She wasn't a politician. But she was like,
I guess you could call her one like she was
in she was the the agency or she worked.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
At the Agency's a former director Intelligence Community bureaucrat.
Speaker 4 (33:06):
Yes, yeah, so there you go, bureaucrat Like okay, so
he was the bureaucrats husband, right, it's all he needed
to be. You don't get Bill Pullman for that.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
Un named bureaucrats husband number two, Like that's what it's
the level of it.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
Yes.
Speaker 4 (33:22):
Also, that's another scene that I would cut. I would
completely excise that scene.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
Yeah, that scene it got away from me because it
was like I got confused because there was too many
There was too few and too many people at the
same time in that scene because she gets there and
and they're talking about his wife, and then this lady
shows up, and I'm like, is that his wife? That
she didn't know that he was dead? And this is
(33:48):
how he finds out. Like I got very confused, Like
obviously that was not the case, but a lot is happening.
It was very kind of Jason Burney. I was like,
you know, reaching back in the days of the Agency,
you know, I don't have context anymore, and and I
just it was it was messy. It didn't. I was
really flow.
Speaker 4 (34:09):
I was really excited up until that moment because I
was like, cool, this movie dares to not answer the
question of what does his resume look like? And because
there's always that that Steven Sagall moment where some general
or some agency man or some bad guys like no,
(34:32):
you don't understand. Okay, this guy was a Green Beret
and a Navy seal at the same time. Like you
drop him off in Mexico with nothing cut but a
stick of gum. You know, he's gonna wind up on
your doorstep with a couple of pesos in his hand,
you know, like like like yeah, Like I was really
(34:52):
proud of the movie for not doing that. But then
we have this scene which really felt out of place
because not only did he expel himself that he was
really alive, but he telegraphed what he was going to do,
how I was going to do it. And she's supposed
to fly to DC and back via helicopter or something
and get the information. And so what's gonna happen when
(35:13):
all these people wind up dead and they're gonna go
you know, you know, missus plumber, you grabbed a lot
of files on this push can guard.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
Oh yeah, okay, see, oh wait, you gotta listen as
the Metro native, as a DC Metro native. That's exactly things,
and nobody knows where any files are. Tristan, I hate
to pull the ball off of everybody's eyes here, but
trust me, it's exactly, very believable that somebody's gonna walk
into the hallway somewhere, grab a big stack of files,
(35:43):
walk out, and nobody's gonna know for thirty years than
anything happened.
Speaker 4 (35:47):
I think that was in the news a couple of
years ago, and so no I can understand that part.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
No problem.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
Okay, that makes it okay. It's even worse because that's
how confused I was in this scene. I totally thought, okay,
so he drives up and it's Bill Pullman and Bill
Pullman's wife, Melissa Lao is is Susan Pullman or so
Sue Susan Plummer and.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
Then he leaves.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
I totally thought she called somebody, and then another lady
showed up. I thought it was two separate characters. It
was that weirdly joined. And then I also thinking, is
mainly one of them his ex wife? I don't know.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
I would offer possibly that watching the movie in pieces
might have contributed.
Speaker 3 (36:35):
That was not the piece I missed, okay in the
middle of the second act.
Speaker 4 (36:40):
So yeah, I felt like it was clumsy and tropy.
It felt like it was a something you'd see in
a nineties film, not something from it.
Speaker 3 (36:49):
It's all there so she can deliver the line he's
asking for permission right like like it's like, oh, we
got to have this line. Oh how do we get there? Well,
eight pages of later, I think we cracked it. It's like, okay,
but let's stop start again. There's got to be a
simpler way to get to that line.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
That's what it feels like. Again, don't have a problem
with it. I actually you know it's what.
Speaker 3 (37:15):
You're sting is you hear what we're saying, but we
don't agree with us.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
What I hear right now is a surprising level of disrespect.
So we'll go ahead, go ahead into the next question
of everything for the for the for the podcast. No,
I I just didn't find it as clunky. I don't.
I don't know if there is something about the pacing
or anything else that just for some reason felt right
(37:42):
to me, Like that obviously didn't click for the both
of you. Because when I sat down, you know, to
rewatch this, it's far from my first time watching it.
I always find myself just sort of like getting in
and there's this sort of vibe to the film, and
it sort of puts me in this Really, I feel
(38:03):
like it has a really good flow, which is why
I'm saying, like I can understand where somebody could look
at it and say one hundred and thirty two minutes,
you could cut this down to like one hundred and
twenty or one hundred and twenty five. I'm like, okay,
I'm hearing that argument. Okay, But it's just like how
sometimes you can listen to the right album and maybe
other people don't love the album, but all of a sudden,
(38:24):
that album's over and you're like, oh wow, okay, I
just got sucked in. This is one of those types
of movies for me where because it takes its time
and it doesn't I don't think that it ever trips
a moment where it stayed so long on something that
I started to feel it too much. A lot of
(38:46):
times it will approach that and then it's moved on
and I'm like, oh okay. I think also some of
the segmentation of it feels like a subtle homage to
the series, Like it feels like a series like television,
like television episodes put together, like this is a series
of things that build and I have like a whole
(39:06):
season in you know, two plus hours sort of this
sweeps week.
Speaker 3 (39:10):
We have basically episodes that all connect together.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
Yeah, and equalizer event starting Sunday, that sort of thing.
Speaker 4 (39:19):
Speaking of which, Okay, automatic star, full star taken off
of the rating because Denzel not once said you've been equalized. Okay,
I just.
Speaker 3 (39:31):
Or or at the very end when he's like, who
are you, like, he didn't he didn't say I'm the equalizer,
which there's no reason he would say that at all.
But I didn't say it, but it was it was implied.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
So all right, that's fair enough. That's fair enough. A
star subtracted for subverting expectations. It's happened before.
Speaker 3 (39:54):
He pulls out a pair of balancing scales. Yes, and
it's like I'm the egal now.
Speaker 2 (40:01):
As we're wrapping up, though, I do want to say,
you know, like this is a director focused podcast, and
Fuquah definitely he's comfortable here. I feel that he and
he and the cinematographer are working well together. We'll have
disagreements about whether he and the editor are working well together.
He and Williams are working well together in terms of
(40:22):
the score. So this is somebody's who's got a flow,
who's got things being put together. There were other directors.
This was in development hell for a little bit, and
there were other directors that were mentioned as we went along,
and I just want to throw them out there and
just ask would you have wanted to see an Equalizer
directed by this director? One of the names out there
(40:43):
that was first slated to direct was I'm going to
butcher his last name, And we do have a Scottish
member of or two of the the nerd party. So whatever, guys,
Paul McGuigan, McGuigan, McGuigan, I don't know mcg u I
ga whatever. Scottish director known for Lucky Number Sleven, Gangster
(41:05):
Number One and Push Darren. You're not at all familiar
with those movies, so you have no idea whether that
would have worked, do you?
Speaker 3 (41:12):
I have no idea.
Speaker 2 (41:13):
That's okay, neither do I Tristan same from you or
have you seen some of his work?
Speaker 4 (41:18):
Mcgwigan mcgwigan's all I can say.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
Okay, that's all we can say. So that's probably why
they didn't move forward with this director who people don't
really know. But then a name comes up when Russell
Crowe was trying to bring The Equalizer to screen where
he was going to play Robert McCall, and it's a
Paul Haggis, known for Million Dollar Baby and Crash. Can
(41:42):
you see Paul Haggis directing The Equalizer and delivering two
plus hours of righteous justice to the world, Darren? More so?
More so, we're trending in the right direct, Tristan. Can
you see a Paul Hagis?
Speaker 4 (42:03):
No, But I think Russell Crowe would have crushed it.
Speaker 2 (42:07):
Russell crow would have been great, and he would. I
think that if Russell Crowe had made this film, it
would have been much more of a callback to the
nineteen eighties show. It would have felt much more like, Oh,
we're just doing like a big screen version of the
TV show that you loved watching oh so many years ago.
Like that's what it would feel to me. He'd have
(42:29):
the right type of accent for the lead character, he'd
be the right type of age for the character. Those
sorts of things.
Speaker 4 (42:36):
Well, one thing with having Denzel in this movie, because
Denzel is a perfectionist and he is heavily involved, like
when he's the leading man, he's heavily involved in the
process in pre production, in writing and tweaking and everything
like that. And so it was his idea to make
McCall have OCD, and it was a legitimate portrayal of OCD.
(43:01):
Like there was none of this. It was none of
this whole key bs that we see all over TV
and movies and everything like that. Like it was it
was like, no, this is what OCD can look like
in certain cases. And that's one of the most defining
characteristics of this character in this movie. And I think
Denzel did such a great job of bringing his denzelness
(43:23):
to the to the movie but doing something a little
different on top of that. And also I just want
to mention in terms of like Fuqua's direction to keep
all the costuming normal was a really refreshing take and really,
like I keep using that word in terms of fuquaus
direction in this movie, like it's he does a lot
(43:45):
of refreshing things, and that was one of them, was
keeping Denzel in a regular shirt tucked in, belted in
jeans and boots. You know, like that's what he looks like.
He's the normal guy. He's living a normal life, total
normal backstory. You know, like like you said, college educated,
you know, works forty hours a week at not Home depot.
(44:08):
You know, like it was just it was really cool
to see.
Speaker 2 (44:10):
Now. One director who was thrown out there very close
to production time in twenty twelve entered the talks was
and I always butcher this guy's name, but known for
Drive and The Neon Demon, among others, Nicholas Winding refin Rifn,
I always mess up his last name A love Drive.
(44:32):
Just for the record, Drive is a freaking fantastic film,
and Neon Demon is a work of art that I
thought highly of but will never watch again for the
rest of my life for various reasons. That's a very
different movie in and of itself. Darren, Have you seen
Drive with Ryan Gosling? Yes, you can see that director
(44:55):
giving us another equalizer similar to this.
Speaker 3 (44:58):
I mean, it's kind of the antithesis of Drive, because
I don't think Denzil has a car in this movie.
He takes like public transportation, yes, everywhere, So it's.
Speaker 2 (45:09):
But but in terms of the vibe of the main character.
Speaker 3 (45:12):
Yeah, they get in an elevator and it's all going
to go bad and yeah, you no, it's it's definitely
the same.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
Vibe, just the same question to you, can you see
I can't?
Speaker 4 (45:24):
No, I think it's I mean, you know, one of
my criticisms of Fukua was overstylizing.
Speaker 2 (45:31):
Some addas, and uh, okay, I see where you're going
with this.
Speaker 4 (45:37):
That's all you really need to say with refin in
the in the conversation, that's all you would get.
Speaker 2 (45:42):
That is very very true. Yes, and I love al.
On the Wikipedia page it says the deal with Sony
fell through for unknown reasons, and I'm just willing to
bet there was some request for the film or like
he said, this is how I would approach it, and
the exacts relfe huh no. And then they went in
(46:03):
to god fuquah.
Speaker 4 (46:04):
Alright, So so Dinzel, all right, he blows off this
dude's head with a shotgun. We see it in slow motion,
all right, But the thing is the head grows back
because he's a vampire. Boom end of movie, yes.
Speaker 2 (46:16):
Or something like. And then he takes all of the
pieces and he puts them together like a puzzle. Afterwards,
something twist.
Speaker 3 (46:23):
He was blade all along.
Speaker 4 (46:25):
Yes, okay, all right, Darren just took it into could
be a good movie territory.
Speaker 2 (46:32):
That's true.
Speaker 3 (46:33):
Believe that happens the last ten seconds with Catches, they
get tossed.
Speaker 2 (46:40):
Yeah, Catches.
Speaker 4 (46:41):
It puts him on these monsters keep trying to ice
skate up hill.
Speaker 2 (46:46):
So here we are. We've gone through the film, We've
discussed this work from Antoine Fuquah, and so we come
to the point of rating this film. And so I
am going to throw it to Tristan first because I
feel like if we start with Tristan, Darren, we got
(47:07):
nowhere to go but up. And so let's see if
I'm right, Tristan, where are you landing on the five
star scale of stars? We always try to do something.
How many nail guns are you going to give the equalizer?
Speaker 4 (47:23):
Okay, So I'm not going to repeat myself because you
guys have heard my points, my thought process. You hear me,
but you don't agree with me. Yes, Now, what I
will do is I will talk about the end. So
this guy is supposed to be in hiding and no
one's supposed to know who he is or what he
can do. And then half of the home depot staff
(47:47):
sees him kick mobster ass and he kills a lot
of people, a lot of people, and he single handedly
takes out Russian mob on the East coast and travels
to Moscow to finish the job.
Speaker 2 (48:07):
Sure does.
Speaker 4 (48:08):
And then he comes home, buys groceries, yes, and goes
to his to his favorite diner like nothing happened. Yes, okay, sir, Yes,
questions will be asked your your coworkers will go, dude,
what the hell was that. More importantly, the police will
(48:31):
have questions for him. You can't just go back to
your life and pretend all of that didn't happen. He
broke a lot of loss, and people know who he
is and where it is now equal now like okay,
So like I was already having a frustrating watch and
then that happened, and I'm like what because okay, we're
(48:56):
not in this is I'm going to reference John Wick,
Agan and John Wick. It's it's this weird alternate reverse
where there's this secret society where assassins pay for body
pickup in coins. Okay, that's otherworldly nonsense. It's supposed to
be fictional and fun and different, unique and weird. We
(49:16):
get it. It's a hyper reality. This movie is not
presented as hyperreality. You can't just murder the mob and
travel to Moscow, kill the head of the snake, chop
off the head of the snake, and come back and
buy groceries. This isn't This is not Grand Theft Auto,
where if the police don't capture you after five minutes,
(49:37):
they give up searching for you. This is two and
a half stars generously.
Speaker 2 (49:43):
I hear you. I'm going to disagree because I think
that by its very nature of existence, it's hyperreality. I
mean you can take a look at the way they
very carefully craft the action scenes, they have, the stories,
everything like that. There is absolutely nothing realistic about this.
(50:06):
It is every bit as hyper reality as John Wick.
Oh no, no, even yes, no, I'm absolutely right about
this close. That is a minute about No, it is
not a cop out because the minute you see him
take them apart in twenty eight seconds and the way
he does it, I'm like, Okay, I get it. This
is the type of movie that we're in. This is
(50:27):
same type of universe building as John Wick. This is
same type of parallel reality strictly on the mounds that opening,
that opening fight doesn't even come close to mirroring how
reality functions.
Speaker 4 (50:40):
Yeah, so you know, it was weird that they added
in the scene where he threw down some gold pirate
coins in order to pay his tab at the Russian bar,
and then like he drives away in a Jaguar. Now
you know, like, yeah, that souped up Jaguar with all
that hyper music and yeah, and then all of a
sudden on a Dharmas comes out and just starts perioetting,
(51:00):
and then like there's a there's a person with like
knives on her feet. Yeah, this is totally on the
same level as that.
Speaker 2 (51:06):
Well, I haven't seen Ballerina and I tapped out after
john Wick three, so maybe there's something I'm missing. Anyway,
I think this is a solid entertainment from beginning to finish.
I'm not looking for anything beyond what it is, which
is not my way of like doing one of those
like Caddy Internet comments toward you, Tristan. It all like
it declared itself to me, and I declared my love
(51:30):
for it after that first fight. So this is a
solid four for me. This is really great entertainment from
beginning to finish. I really enjoy this. Yes, I agree
it could be trimmed down. Yes, I agree. There are
certain scenes where it's like, Okay, this scene could be
about three quarters this length. But you know what, I'm
willing to go with it because, like I said, it
(51:50):
slides into a groove and I'm grooving with it. Darren
Tristan gives it two and a half. I give it
for I don't think I'm getting more than a four Outnue.
But are we backsliding back towards Tristan or are we holding?
Are we equalizing?
Speaker 4 (52:06):
Oh jeez, they're raising No.
Speaker 3 (52:10):
This was This was a really fun movie. I really
enjoyed watching it. It did really well at the box office.
It made almost two hundred million on like a fifty
five seventy million budgets, So that means there's gonna be sequels, gentlemen.
Oh yes, and yeah, the you know from the opening part,
the opening fight, when he is kind of looking around
(52:32):
at everything. I don't know about you guys, but I
was getting flashbacks to Robert Downey Junior's Sherlock Holmes without
the narration where he's like, you know, planning out his moves.
He was more like sizing up the room. Like. It
wasn't as so far as like and then I'm gonna
stab him. It's more like he has a knife, file
that away for ten seconds from now. So I really
(52:54):
like that, Like it worked really well. I love the
way I viewed it at the very end when he's
you know, in the sprinkler rain and it's looking you know,
zubin it on his eye. They really like zubinan on
his eye.
Speaker 2 (53:07):
But but I loved.
Speaker 3 (53:09):
The end shot where he it's like he's crying but
not crying because the tears are from the rain, not
from They're from the outside, not from the inside. I
was like, oh, I don't think. I don't know if
that was intentional, but it feels very poetic. But no,
I'm given this four stars. I really enjoyed this movie.
(53:29):
Yes it's kicking off. I think it's going to be
a great franchise. And I'm I still can't believe he
did all this without a car. So that's that's there's
no chase sequence.
Speaker 2 (53:42):
That's oh, just you wait until you see the next one,
and they yeah, you'll you'll understand. So all that said,
we've had a lot of fun here in the House
of Fuquah looking at these films, and you know, the Equalizer,
It seems to have split us, but I find myself
satisfied with these films. And Darren, you know, why don't
(54:06):
you take us out? What's coming up next?
Speaker 3 (54:08):
Well, we had a great time visiting three decades of
Antoine and next we're going to be covering the mechas
of the nineties with Back to the Future Part three.
Here on, house Lights
Speaker 1 (54:21):
Join the Revolution, join the ned Party,
Welcome to the NED party.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
You have entered once again into the House of Fuquah.
Here the latest saga exploring the works of a director,
this one being Antoine Fuquah. Welcome as we continue this
exploration with The Equalizer, a re teeming of Denzel Washington
with Antoine Fuquah, a teaming we're familiar with from our
(00:41):
discussion about Training Day last week. And who is the
we here? Well, Gosh, I am John the Equalizer of
this podcast, and I'm joined by the two dirty Cops,
Tristan Medell and Darren Moser, who I insist must pay
you back with a quality piece of entertainment discussing this
film to make up for burning your kitchen. So, gentlemen,
(01:03):
here we are at the Action powerhouse film The Equalizer.
It was released in twenty fourteen, and it was a
rebirth in many ways because it was based loosely on
a TV show of the same name from the nineteen
eighties that yours truly might have grown up watching. And
(01:24):
I can say that, you know, I did not go
see this in the theater because I was one of
those people that was like, how can you remix the Equalizer?
That's a take for TV show. I was going through
one of those phases as so many of us do. But, gentlemen,
what was your first encounter? I will kick off with you, Darren.
Your first encounter was The Equalizer here on House Life.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
You're not gonna like it because it's going to feel
very modern and terrible. Because if you asked me if
I had seen this movie, the answer would be no,
and also yes, this is I'm pretty sure I did
not ever sit down and watch, but I came across
like a series of reels online that were like best
(02:09):
little bits of the Equalizer. So I'd seen lots of
little bits, not really knowing what Denzil movie this was from,
because obviously I recognized him. So that's the level of
engagement I had when I sat down to watch it
this weekend and it all clicked. I'm like, oh, this
is the movie that you know, the not Home Depot
(02:31):
attack is happening at and all of that. So I
won't say it spoiled it because I hadn't remembered those
scenes enough to have it all fled back. But as
they each came up, it was like, Okay, there's this one,
but I had the whole plot now, like there's nothing
(02:52):
of the diner and the best of clips, you know,
you don't know what's happening there, although when he turns
off the line as the as the you know van
goes by is a great shot in moment. So all
that to say, this was really my first time on
seeing the story, and yeah, I want to say overall
(03:13):
this movie is a great does a great job of
showing and not telling, especially when it doesn't even show,
like like the moment where he takes the hammer and
like the next shot is him coming back and putting
it away as he wipes it off. You don't even
know what happened to that guy specifically, but you know
(03:35):
what you do, Yeah, you do.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
So you're giving context clues as they might are.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
Yes, And honestly, we don't need to see the exact
of that. Anything we could think of is like we're
just like, oh that he's dead, like and he had
it coming and it was very painful and and he
got the ring back. That is all that matters.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
So respecting personal property is in important. You really you
need to. You need to keep in mind that when
a man cares about something, he's going to care about
it deeply. So Tristan, your first encounter with the Equalizer?
Did you did well? I need to know. Did your
father have old videotapes of Edward Woodward as the Equalizer
(04:19):
and he showed them to you to prep for this film.
Speaker 4 (04:22):
I was interesting because when we started talking about doing
Fuquah the House of Fuquah, and we started talking about
which movies we were going to tackle, and we decided
to do the order that we're doing. And you brought
up that The Equalizer was a TV show And I
said to you, what when I had literally never heard
(04:42):
about it ever, not a passing reference, not an ad,
not a something a blockbuster or not an old TV guide, nothing, nothing.
So I had no idea that this existed. But actually,
in doing research for this podcast, I did see that
there are a lot of homages to the TV show.
(05:03):
Oh yeah, within the movie. Oh yes, yes there are.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
It is It's very see. What I think is very
cool about it is that Fuquah takes the care to
bake those homages in without calling specific attention to them.
There's no moment as somebody who grew up watching the show.
And I mean I listen, I'm not like four hundred
years old. I was a kid when the show was on.
But there are little things baked in that every so
(05:27):
often somebody would point out and be like, oh yeah,
that's the car from the show. Is like, oh yeah,
I remember that. Like that sort of thing as opposed
to like a hit you over the head with a
hammer and wipe it off sort of homage reference that
you might get. So this movie comes out to you know,
I would say casting Denzel is a surprising move. This
(05:50):
isn't necessarily a role that before he was in it,
I would have expected Denzel Washington to inhabit. This isn't
the type of role that really jumps out in the
Denzel Washington body of work necessarily.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
Of the other are the avenging age had you not
seen Man on Fire?
Speaker 2 (06:08):
I had not seen Man on Fire at that point,
and unfortunately many people had not seen Man Man on
Fire by this point. So you know, give and take
there on that one. Give me a break. You know,
for a fact, I hadn't seen Man on Fire.
Speaker 4 (06:21):
But I just know I forgott until you mentioned it.
I did. I forgot that because I just want to
say that, like, watching this, I'm like, y, do you
know who else was a big fan of men on fire,
Antoine Fuqua.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Yes, yes, and but but that's the thing is overall,
you don't really see Denzel Washington as a John Wick
style avenger of wrongs. Uh, but Darren, you go in,
Denzel's not a young man when this comes out. But
you know, he's not like ready for retirement or anything,
but he's not a young man. Did you have any
(06:55):
trouble believing Denzel when he was in those moments being
the action star that he needed to be. Did you
ever have a moment where you said, I don't really
buy this.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
No, I really was fully on board with this character.
And maybe it was the watch, the fact that he's
kind of almost setting up his you know, oh, my
personal best in this situation is sixteen seconds or aka,
I have about sixteen seconds of old man energy to
take out these punks, and I better you know, tomize
(07:30):
my attack. So again, we don't see flashbacks of his
glory days. We don't see a lot of the pieces.
There's a lot of subtlety of again you know, not
not telling, but you can tell that this is a
dangerous man, and they really portrayed it, I think very
(07:51):
convincingly that yeah, I totally buy every moment. He's very smart,
he's very surgical. It's not a gun's blazing.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
You know.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
He actually rarely.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Kills with the gun.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
He kills with the real gun, or that he kills
with the gun.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Oh okay, I was.
Speaker 4 (08:10):
He never kills anybody with a gun except for except
for the first guy. Well like when he's when he's
holding that's he's actually making the other guy fire the gun.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
Oh I see he's co opting someone else's gun.
Speaker 4 (08:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
So yeah.
Speaker 4 (08:25):
Also, I just technically.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
He pulled the trigger under my finger, so technically I
I didn't shoot him.
Speaker 4 (08:32):
We can't skip over the genius that Darren just dropped
because I need to use sixteen seconds of old man
energy somewhere somehow. I don't know if it's gonna be
the title of my autobiography. It's I don't know if
I'm gonna have to wait that long, but it's gonna be.
I'm gonna use that somehow. I'm stealing that darm No.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
That was that was a great and then he like
overshot it. He's like, oh I was like nineteen seconds slower. Okay,
I get work to improve, Denzel, work to improve, you know,
but no, so I I think, yeah, they they nailed
that part of the character. I felt like this was
a guy who's seen some stuff and done some stuff.
(09:15):
So I was fully on board with that past coming out.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
And we've seen that. It's a trope.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
We've seen that so many times. It's Rocky, it's you know,
so many other things where they have a side to
them that is shaped by war and conflict and they
just want peace and they bring that out into the forefront.
I'm not saying this is a copy of Rocky or
something like that, you know, the main character that has
a You're right, too many I'm visualizing Rambo. And both
(09:50):
John and I were like, what Rambo in a box? Rockey,
It's a movie I might want to see. I'm just
they're played by the same actor. Okay, so I will
mix and he also and they both begin with R.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
He also played Kobreddy. But you're not throwing Cobra around.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
I'm going to blank that movie out. But yes, so Rambo,
That's what I totally said. Guys, yeah, that person with
a past. So I was digging it.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
So Tristan, you know something you you drew attention to
was Darren you know, Haha. The sixteen seconds of old
Man energy, But it's really the subtlety of it. There
seems to be an economy that's built into the action scenes.
It would have been very easy for somebody to have
a stunt double come in and have super high energy
(10:39):
action scenes in those fights. Do you think that it's
effective to have somebody within economy of motion? Did it
make it stand out as an action film in any
way for you, in the way that Denzel inhabited it physically?
Speaker 4 (10:54):
Well, when this movie came out, we were at the
peak of Shaky Kim and I feel like this was
a nice respite from that, where if you looked at
the cinematography, and I have a point I'm coming back
to your question, but if you look at the cinematography
of it, it's very classical in the way that it's shot.
(11:14):
It's you see everything. There's no obfuscation. It's not whip
there's no whippans, there's no extreme I mean, I was
about to say extreme closeups, but there's a lot of
extreme closeups, but there's there's nothing that's hiding the action.
There's no green grass effect in this and I really
appreciated that. And one of the one of the things
that you you have to do when you shoot it
(11:37):
that way is you have to make your action legible
as well, because you can't just have frantic whaling when
you can see everything's on screen. And so when you
show that Denzel, because like right off the bat they
show that Denzel is no spring chicken anymore. Like you
you see him with gray hair at the very top
of the movie and he's shaving it off, and it's
(11:59):
to remind the audience that, like, Denzel is not ageless,
even though we kind of picture him as as ageless,
he's not. He's he's getting older. And I love that
he said that he was a buck ninety one night,
a buck ninety and I literally said out loud. I
was like bs and what they called it out at
the end. But regardless, I'm like, I think the action
(12:21):
style was very refreshing for this type of movie, because
when you have something that like John Wick that came
out at the same time, like it's it's unrealistic gunfighting,
and that's not a criticism, it's just is what it is.
And this one went in a different direction where it's
not Jason Bourne or Batman or anything like that, Like
this is a guy who is trained to take out
(12:43):
people as quickly and efficiently as possible. There's no flare
to it, he just does it. And I think that
was that mixed with the type of cinematography really benefited
this picture.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Yeah, and for the director of photography, it's Mario forat Fiore.
I'm always going to mess up his last name. But
he had worked with Fuquah on training Day. Between training
Day and now, he had worked with Michael Bay on
the Island. He had worked with Fuquah again on Tears
of the Sun. He had worked well of course, famously
(13:17):
wins an Oscar for his work on Avatar with James
Cameron and comes back around to Fuquah eventually and does
three in a row with Fuqua starting with this.
Speaker 4 (13:28):
And he also did Smoking Aces, And anybody who's seen
that film knows that this cinematographer, like Fiori, knows how
to do whippans, he knows how to do fastands, shaky
camp because Smoking Aces is basically green grass on crack.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
But that's that's sort of what I'm building to, is it.
I think it exhibits a real basically, it underlines the
fact that it's a real choice of the director and
the DP to say this is the style of this
movie and we are going to stick to it, because
it would have been so easy to fall back on, oh,
I know how to shoot this. They obviously had conferences
(14:07):
where they said, how are we going to break this down? Now?
In terms of breaking things down, Darren, this movie is
not an hour and a half. It takes its time
getting where it's going. And my question to you, I
usually toss this to Tristan first, but I'll toss it
to you. Did you have any issue with the editing,
with the pace of the film. Do you feel that
(14:29):
it took the right amount of time to get where
it was going or do you think that it took
too long to get to where it was going?
Speaker 3 (14:36):
First, I just want to cap off what we said
about Denzel's age. I just looked it up and at
the time that this movie came out, he was sixty.
That is incredible.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
But yes, hey, I'm not that far off from it.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
I'm just saying I'm just he did a great job.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
I feel Prinzil But yeah, with the I don't know.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
I'm probably not the best one to answer this because
I just because of my schedule ended up watching this
in two chunks. Anyway, I didn't have the full time
to sit down, so I had a break in the middle,
but nothing jumped out. It is a bit of a
slow burn before we get to you know, but kicking
(15:21):
Denzel like a while goes into this and even set
up for the bad guy, you know it. I mean,
I think if I had to describe it in one word,
it is slow burn.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
It is definitely that it is. It's one hundred and
thirty two minutes and I.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
Think this built every single one of them.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Well, I mean the first action see the first action
sequence is about thirty minutes in. I think it ends.
The first action sequence ends around thirty two or thirty
three minutes into the film. And so Tristan, you know,
let's knock it over to you. You love to talk
about editing, and I think it's all you love to
talk about. I think this is the only reason you
(16:03):
podcast on this show. But did you you felt every
second of this? Did you sit there watching this criticiz like,
what were you going in your head saying, okay, cut this,
chop that or was it more in retrospect?
Speaker 4 (16:16):
No, it was it was like as I was watching it.
I was just like, oh, good lord, no, get rid
of this scene, get rid of this take cut this down.
I was. I was fine with a slow burn at
the beginning. I really was, Like when you mentioned that
the first action scene wasn't until half an hour in,
I was like, okay, all right, cool, all right. I
was just kind of like trying to vibe with it,
(16:36):
just like, all right, it's a slow burn. It's cool.
We're doing a lot of character work, we're building the world,
we're building him. I was fine with it. But then
towards the end of the second act, I was just
crawling out of my skin. I was like, good lord,
I have so much left of this movie. And then
(16:57):
when I finished it, like I yelled at my my
wife didn't watch it with me. She was off doing
something else and the kids weren't home so I could
actually watch it without headphones. But like, at the end
of this movie, I was like, good lord, this movie
had no business being as long as it was no
business Like you could, I say this without exaggeration, you
(17:18):
could trim this down by half an hour easy.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
I don't know that I would agree about half an hour.
Speaker 4 (17:25):
I truly believe that, like you could get this at
one forty five one point fifty, and I truly believe
that that would be a primo. I think run Time could.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
But whether or not I should see.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
An aspect of this is the circling sharks of the
two antagonists and protagonists as they draw closer to their
final battle. And if you mess with that timing too much,
see it shifts.
Speaker 4 (17:53):
It a bit.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
I get what you're saying, Tristan, I don't agree with
it is the best way I get. I can put
it specifically, becase cause of the fact that I know
that if I were to look at this, say the
way Soderberg looked at her, I'd be like, I can
get this done in ninety minutes. Okay, we're gonna cut
the kitchen burning seating, We're gonna cut the corrupt cops
with one of the Wallbergers. We're gonna cut. We're gonna
just gonna go down. We're just gonna But what I
(18:16):
admire and respect about the movie is actually the fact
that it sets up specifically why and how he expresses
how he cares so much about certain people.
Speaker 4 (18:28):
I'm I might for that, I'm all for I really
am to keep the opening, keep the first thirty minutes exactly.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
I'm not I'm not talking about just the opening. I'm
talking about the guy who's going up for security guard.
That it shows him not just expressing his love for
somebody by kicking somebody's butt. He shows up and he said, oh,
I'm gonna help clean up the kitchen. You see, this
guy has this circle of people and he he loves
(18:54):
and does everything for them, not just you know, vigilante
justice sort of thing. Assuming that I would cut that,
I am actually I am assuming because I don't. Well,
then give me an example of what you would cut,
because I wouldn't cut anything about the crazy mob guy
going through and intimidating people and beating up irishman. And
(19:15):
I wouldn't you know, you know, any of that stuff
would be cut. Are you talking about you would simply
cut in the back part of the movie?
Speaker 4 (19:22):
I would. I would completely remove the the robber at
a at not home depot, Completely remove that storyline, excize
it completely. There's no business for it being there. In fact,
I think it actually was a detriment to the movie,
not just because of its length. I actually had a
problem with that scene because when he's you know, like
(19:42):
when he confronts the mob. He's confronting the mob because
a person that he cares about is in trouble and
he wants to release her from the servitude. She's an
underage prostitute who's basically in sex trafficking and she can't
get out on own and she can't get out so
she isn't sex trafficking, and and so he's trying to
get her out like that, I get that, And then
(20:04):
there and then the next scene was like dirty cops
taking advantage of hardworking people, and him, as a former
law enforcement you know person, you know that means something
to him. Keep it, love it. But then when the
when basically a tweaker comes and robs a woman at
gunpoint and steals her ring, I feel like it's a
step too far to when he like he's a vigilante already,
(20:29):
but like it was a step too far because the
danger was over, that woman was no longer in danger,
she lost a ring. I'm sorry, crap happens. But then
we're supposed to believe that because this guy was brutally
murdered with a sledgehammer because he robbed a home depot,
you know, like that, it took up time. It was
(20:49):
confusing about the character because like at first, like my
first reaction to it was, oh, damn, is this like
Taxi Driver? Like is he like like the end of
Taxi Driver where you're just like, oh, did he get
a taste for this? He's just gonna look for more blood?
Like is it no longer about the victim anymore? Is
it just about the getting the quote unquote justice? Like
(21:11):
So that scene was really confusing to me, and I
think it was a detriment towards his character. And then
like when we then as we move on from that,
like I wouldn't really maybe I would. Mostly I would
get rid of Kosca's murder of that poor girl that
went on way too long. I would. I would excize
it completely. I don't think it was necessary. We already
(21:31):
know that he's a bad guy. He's an evil guy.
But I would condense it a great deal if someone
was like forcing me to keep it, and then from
there on out, I would just trim scenes down. I
would just condense, And I really I really think that
you could, you could excise thirty twenty minutes minimum.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
I don't know that I would cut the not Home
depot thing, just because I do think that there is
a moment when he he takes his first you know,
his first vengeance on the room full of guys, the
twenty eight seconds of killing spree where he's sitting down
(22:10):
and he's talking the guy through and about thirty seconds
you're going to die and was this worth ninety eight
hundred dollars? And he has a moment where he puts
his head down and I forget exactly what he says,
but he's like, he basically says something along the lines
of like I'm sorry, Like you can see him. I
think you're right. He basically, once he's turned on, that's
just who he is going forward. And I think that
(22:33):
does show that he the whole reason he doesn't want
to get involved in it is because he knows what.
Like when he goes to the door and he opens
the door and he closes it, and he opens and
he closes it, it's because he's sitting there he's like, what,
I can't he can't operate, you know, flipping between states.
It's once he's on, he's on. And I think that
(22:55):
the movie maybe doesn't do a clear enough job of saying, well,
this is where he goes too far. It just shows
the guy has just entered that mode and he's just
that's just who he's gonna be until the end. And
like it, basically every time it gets tripped, it's just
going to happen. But you know, maybe to your point,
maybe that's where it lacks some clarity in terms of,
(23:19):
you know, the where the character goes.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
Well, and I'll say, with you know, sledgehammer Guy or
whatever we're gonna call him, it did feel a little
contrived that in the background there was like a line
thrown in there of or actually, no, it's standing in
the background. It's Denzel says it where he's like, oh, yeah,
the cops talked about this guy and he shot someone
else and he's robbed other people. And it's like, oh,
(23:44):
I see what you're doing. Story, you're justifying it, because
if you had not had that line, it's straight up murder,
like you're you're you're trying to ease it of like, oh, look,
he's killed, he might kill again. You know, now we
have a reason for our vigilante to step into action.
I mean they even shoot that scene of him gearing
(24:08):
up for an attack, and the only reason he aborts
is because you know, a mom and daughter walk in
like which you know raises whole other things, Like you know,
imagine him straight up killing that guy right there at
the register like that would have been a very different scene.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
It would have been a very different scene. I mean.
The thing is, like I said, Tristan, it's it's not
that I it's not that I don't understand what you're saying.
Is that I just don't agree with it.
Speaker 4 (24:36):
Because that's cool, man, That's why we have this podcast.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
Oh no, no, no, no, no, no no. I'm building
to a point I betray this trust that we've built.
See the thing is, now we're spoiling everything. That's no fun. No,
I it's it's for the sake of a more direct
sort of way. I think is have you ever seen
the original Death Wish with Charles Bronson? Have either one
(25:00):
of you seen that? Ages ago, ages ago? Now, it's
not a good movie. I want to underline that. And
there's actually one point wherein I consider him to be
a reprehensible father. And I'm not going to even point
people to the movie or reference the scene, but if
you've seen it, I can tell you that you undoubtedly
got the creepies during a certain moment where you're like, oh, dude,
(25:22):
what are you doing talking to her like that? But
this is more along the lines of a death wish,
and I think that's the sort of thing where the
entire thing operates as this guy's gone off the deep end,
and so once he goes over the whole thing is
at what point what will finally make him stop doing
(25:43):
the thing that he's doing or will he learn to
pull back? Either way? So not high marks for the editing,
but did it destroy the suspense or not suspense? But
did it destroy the vibe of the movie enough to
work against the tension? And this is to U Tristi
that Fuqua is trying to build in those scenes, Like
(26:05):
was it something where by the end you just didn't
get into the action because it had burned up all
of its goodwill?
Speaker 4 (26:12):
Yeah, a little bit. Unfortunately, I feel like there was.
It kind of took me out of it, like because
it's so frustrated. As I was watching the latter half
that I was, I was drawn into how overstylized some
of the action scenes were, like when he destroys the
ship and we have basically a nuclear bomb go off
(26:35):
behind him. All I'm hearing is you know, like the
is the Saturday Night Live people's singing like cool guys
don't look at explosions, you know, Like it's such a
massive explosion and he's just walked. He's sauntering through it
in slow motion, on the edge of.
Speaker 3 (26:55):
The shockwave, Like, yeah, he's the edge.
Speaker 4 (26:59):
He he would go deaf, like he'd be blown to smither.
Reads like this is not something that you walk away from,
and so like it was shot in slow motion. And
then also like when we get towards the end and
he shoots Coskas with a with a nail gun and
then like the sprinklers go off and it's in super
slow motion for a very long time, and we're like, yes,
(27:22):
that's a really cool epic shot of him in the water.
I get it. But he I think it was Fuquan
not knowing when to cut back. Is like each one
of those things is cool on its own, but every
single time it lasted too long, and it just made
me think, Man, I've seen this before, and I've seen
(27:42):
it done better.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Well do you feel do you feel that the music
by Harry Gregson Williams help at all? Did that?
Speaker 4 (27:52):
It made me think about Man on Fire even more,
where Aaron I was like, you know what I want, Denzel,
I want a revenge store and get me Harry Griggson
freaking Williams.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
Okay, okay, Darren. You know for the music. Did the
music work for you? Did it contribute to the tension
building the action scenes, anything like that, or was it
just something you didn't really notice at all? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (28:17):
No, I'm seeing a lot of his list. There's a
lot of coworking with very big action movies, especially in
the nineties and two thousands. So yeah, it it drew
It drew me in because just like any sort of
action movie, knowing when to play the music and when
(28:39):
to have it be like that sound like they're sneaking
up the stairs or you hear the creaks of doors
or things like that. You know, that is also a
major component of music. It's not every beat has to
have a thing happening, like you know, you don't need
you don't need it everywhere. So I think the balance
they struck in the equalizer was really good. I'm not
(29:00):
going to talk about the end credits for the end
music because that felt a little I don't know what
was happening there. It was like you know what I expected, like,
you know, smash Mouth to come out or something, you know,
to play play it off. It was very music video
in the very last ten seconds. I don't know why. Uh.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
You know that is interesting because I know that in
the in the trailer they debuted a song by Eminem
with Sia. I think what the trailer was the debut
of a new song, and I forget the name of it.
I think it was like something before Fear or something
like that. Yeah, I think that Fuquah did make an
(29:46):
odd choice at the end there. I absolutely concede that,
But I think maybe you put your finger on it
that he's his music video roots just got the better of.
Speaker 3 (29:57):
Him, gots over, fearts over.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
That's what it is. That's that's over here man.
Speaker 3 (30:03):
That name.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
Yeah, you know. So you know what we haven't talked
about at this point is the supporting cast. So of course, Chloe,
Chloe Grace Moretz is there as as you know, the
first recipient of Robert's support on his revenge killing spree.
(30:25):
But Tristan, you know, do you feel that the supporting
cast is seen in this film or do you feel
that it's mainly just Denzel Washington and people floating in
to deliver lines to spur him forward.
Speaker 4 (30:38):
No, no, no, I think this is a I think
this is a solid supporting cast. Like I free and
love Martin Koscas. I absolutely love him. I think I
hope I'm pronouncing his name right. And also it was
fun to see David Harbor in this. I think it's
always a good time when David Harbor pops up. I'm
not the biggest fan of Chloe Grace Morets. I don't
(30:59):
know what it is. I think a little bit. I
know that she's a good actress and she's been acting
for such a long time, but it's a little of
irrational dislike. I think maybe it's her voice. I don't
dig on that vocal fry.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
That is she your Meryl Streep?
Speaker 4 (31:17):
She might be likely enough, like whenever I see her face,
I'm like, why which.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
Is not which? So the audience understands is no comment
on how she looks.
Speaker 4 (31:30):
No, I mean saying she's a very pretty woman.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
When he sees her in a role, it's like, I react.
This is why I made the reference when I write
when I react to Meryl Streep on a movie post.
For some unknown reason my first reaction is eugh, okay,
And even though I know fully well, fully well, she's
a great actress and everybody loves her and everything, for
some reason very deep in.
Speaker 4 (31:54):
My stupid it's it's the same exact thing. It's something
really really weird. It's it's uncon She's very talented, she
was freaking hilarious and thirty rock. She just got married,
So congratulations to her.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
But what a wonderful journey she's just taken.
Speaker 4 (32:11):
Yeah, So like, honestly, honestly, it's all me. It's all me,
and I don't know what it is. But one thing
that I thought was a little weird, Bill Pullman was there.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
Was that was a surprise. It was a little distracting
for like five lines, like it could have been anybody.
Speaker 4 (32:29):
It should have been anybody. I think that's the thing.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
No, there are no small roles, only small actors gentlemen,
and mister Pullman showed up and he delivered those five
lines with more skill than many other actors.
Speaker 4 (32:46):
Will Now, I freaking love Bill Pullman. He's an amazing actor.
But that's why it was so weird, because he was
the she wasn't She wasn't a politician. But she was like,
I guess you could call her one like she was
in she was the the agency or she worked.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
At the Agency's a former director Intelligence Community bureaucrat.
Speaker 4 (33:06):
Yes, yeah, so there you go, bureaucrat Like okay, so
he was the bureaucrats husband, right, it's all he needed
to be. You don't get Bill Pullman for that.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
Un named bureaucrats husband number two, Like that's what it's
the level of it.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
Yes.
Speaker 4 (33:22):
Also, that's another scene that I would cut. I would
completely excise that scene.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
Yeah, that scene it got away from me because it
was like I got confused because there was too many
There was too few and too many people at the
same time in that scene because she gets there and
and they're talking about his wife, and then this lady
shows up, and I'm like, is that his wife? That
she didn't know that he was dead? And this is
(33:48):
how he finds out. Like I got very confused, Like
obviously that was not the case, but a lot is happening.
It was very kind of Jason Burney. I was like,
you know, reaching back in the days of the Agency,
you know, I don't have context anymore, and and I
just it was it was messy. It didn't. I was
really flow.
Speaker 4 (34:09):
I was really excited up until that moment because I
was like, cool, this movie dares to not answer the
question of what does his resume look like? And because
there's always that that Steven Sagall moment where some general
or some agency man or some bad guys like no,
(34:32):
you don't understand. Okay, this guy was a Green Beret
and a Navy seal at the same time. Like you
drop him off in Mexico with nothing cut but a
stick of gum. You know, he's gonna wind up on
your doorstep with a couple of pesos in his hand,
you know, like like like yeah, Like I was really
(34:52):
proud of the movie for not doing that. But then
we have this scene which really felt out of place
because not only did he expel himself that he was
really alive, but he telegraphed what he was going to do,
how I was going to do it. And she's supposed
to fly to DC and back via helicopter or something
and get the information. And so what's gonna happen when
(35:13):
all these people wind up dead and they're gonna go
you know, you know, missus plumber, you grabbed a lot
of files on this push can guard.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
Oh yeah, okay, see, oh wait, you gotta listen as
the Metro native, as a DC Metro native. That's exactly things,
and nobody knows where any files are. Tristan, I hate
to pull the ball off of everybody's eyes here, but
trust me, it's exactly, very believable that somebody's gonna walk
into the hallway somewhere, grab a big stack of files,
(35:43):
walk out, and nobody's gonna know for thirty years than
anything happened.
Speaker 4 (35:47):
I think that was in the news a couple of
years ago, and so no I can understand that part.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
No problem.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
Okay, that makes it okay. It's even worse because that's
how confused I was in this scene. I totally thought, okay,
so he drives up and it's Bill Pullman and Bill
Pullman's wife, Melissa Lao is is Susan Pullman or so
Sue Susan Plummer and.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
Then he leaves.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
I totally thought she called somebody, and then another lady
showed up. I thought it was two separate characters. It
was that weirdly joined. And then I also thinking, is
mainly one of them his ex wife? I don't know.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
I would offer possibly that watching the movie in pieces
might have contributed.
Speaker 3 (36:35):
That was not the piece I missed, okay in the
middle of the second act.
Speaker 4 (36:40):
So yeah, I felt like it was clumsy and tropy.
It felt like it was a something you'd see in
a nineties film, not something from it.
Speaker 3 (36:49):
It's all there so she can deliver the line he's
asking for permission right like like it's like, oh, we
got to have this line. Oh how do we get there? Well,
eight pages of later, I think we cracked it. It's like, okay,
but let's stop start again. There's got to be a
simpler way to get to that line.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
That's what it feels like. Again, don't have a problem
with it. I actually you know it's what.
Speaker 3 (37:15):
You're sting is you hear what we're saying, but we
don't agree with us.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
What I hear right now is a surprising level of disrespect.
So we'll go ahead, go ahead into the next question
of everything for the for the for the podcast. No,
I I just didn't find it as clunky. I don't.
I don't know if there is something about the pacing
or anything else that just for some reason felt right
(37:42):
to me, Like that obviously didn't click for the both
of you. Because when I sat down, you know, to
rewatch this, it's far from my first time watching it.
I always find myself just sort of like getting in
and there's this sort of vibe to the film, and
it sort of puts me in this Really, I feel
(38:03):
like it has a really good flow, which is why
I'm saying, like I can understand where somebody could look
at it and say one hundred and thirty two minutes,
you could cut this down to like one hundred and
twenty or one hundred and twenty five. I'm like, okay,
I'm hearing that argument. Okay, But it's just like how
sometimes you can listen to the right album and maybe
other people don't love the album, but all of a sudden,
(38:24):
that album's over and you're like, oh wow, okay, I
just got sucked in. This is one of those types
of movies for me where because it takes its time
and it doesn't I don't think that it ever trips
a moment where it stayed so long on something that
I started to feel it too much. A lot of
(38:46):
times it will approach that and then it's moved on
and I'm like, oh okay. I think also some of
the segmentation of it feels like a subtle homage to
the series, Like it feels like a series like television,
like television episodes put together, like this is a series
of things that build and I have like a whole
(39:06):
season in you know, two plus hours sort of this
sweeps week.
Speaker 3 (39:10):
We have basically episodes that all connect together.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
Yeah, and equalizer event starting Sunday, that sort of thing.
Speaker 4 (39:19):
Speaking of which, Okay, automatic star, full star taken off
of the rating because Denzel not once said you've been equalized. Okay,
I just.
Speaker 3 (39:31):
Or or at the very end when he's like, who
are you, like, he didn't he didn't say I'm the equalizer,
which there's no reason he would say that at all.
But I didn't say it, but it was it was implied.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
So all right, that's fair enough. That's fair enough. A
star subtracted for subverting expectations. It's happened before.
Speaker 3 (39:54):
He pulls out a pair of balancing scales. Yes, and
it's like I'm the egal now.
Speaker 2 (40:01):
As we're wrapping up, though, I do want to say,
you know, like this is a director focused podcast, and
Fuquah definitely he's comfortable here. I feel that he and
he and the cinematographer are working well together. We'll have
disagreements about whether he and the editor are working well together.
He and Williams are working well together in terms of
(40:22):
the score. So this is somebody's who's got a flow,
who's got things being put together. There were other directors.
This was in development hell for a little bit, and
there were other directors that were mentioned as we went along,
and I just want to throw them out there and
just ask would you have wanted to see an Equalizer
directed by this director? One of the names out there
(40:43):
that was first slated to direct was I'm going to
butcher his last name, And we do have a Scottish
member of or two of the the nerd party. So whatever, guys,
Paul McGuigan, McGuigan, McGuigan, I don't know mcg u I
ga whatever. Scottish director known for Lucky Number Sleven, Gangster
(41:05):
Number One and Push Darren. You're not at all familiar
with those movies, so you have no idea whether that
would have worked, do you?
Speaker 3 (41:12):
I have no idea.
Speaker 2 (41:13):
That's okay, neither do I Tristan same from you or
have you seen some of his work?
Speaker 4 (41:18):
Mcgwigan mcgwigan's all I can say.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
Okay, that's all we can say. So that's probably why
they didn't move forward with this director who people don't
really know. But then a name comes up when Russell
Crowe was trying to bring The Equalizer to screen where
he was going to play Robert McCall, and it's a
Paul Haggis, known for Million Dollar Baby and Crash. Can
(41:42):
you see Paul Haggis directing The Equalizer and delivering two
plus hours of righteous justice to the world, Darren? More so?
More so, we're trending in the right direct, Tristan. Can
you see a Paul Hagis?
Speaker 4 (42:03):
No, But I think Russell Crowe would have crushed it.
Speaker 2 (42:07):
Russell crow would have been great, and he would. I
think that if Russell Crowe had made this film, it
would have been much more of a callback to the
nineteen eighties show. It would have felt much more like, Oh,
we're just doing like a big screen version of the
TV show that you loved watching oh so many years ago.
Like that's what it would feel to me. He'd have
(42:29):
the right type of accent for the lead character, he'd
be the right type of age for the character. Those
sorts of things.
Speaker 4 (42:36):
Well, one thing with having Denzel in this movie, because
Denzel is a perfectionist and he is heavily involved, like
when he's the leading man, he's heavily involved in the
process in pre production, in writing and tweaking and everything
like that. And so it was his idea to make
McCall have OCD, and it was a legitimate portrayal of OCD.
(43:01):
Like there was none of this. It was none of
this whole key bs that we see all over TV
and movies and everything like that. Like it was it
was like, no, this is what OCD can look like
in certain cases. And that's one of the most defining
characteristics of this character in this movie. And I think
Denzel did such a great job of bringing his denzelness
(43:23):
to the to the movie but doing something a little
different on top of that. And also I just want
to mention in terms of like Fuqua's direction to keep
all the costuming normal was a really refreshing take and really,
like I keep using that word in terms of fuquaus
direction in this movie, like it's he does a lot
(43:45):
of refreshing things, and that was one of them, was
keeping Denzel in a regular shirt tucked in, belted in
jeans and boots. You know, like that's what he looks like.
He's the normal guy. He's living a normal life, total
normal backstory. You know, like like you said, college educated,
you know, works forty hours a week at not Home depot.
(44:08):
You know, like it was just it was really cool
to see.
Speaker 2 (44:10):
Now. One director who was thrown out there very close
to production time in twenty twelve entered the talks was
and I always butcher this guy's name, but known for
Drive and The Neon Demon, among others, Nicholas Winding refin Rifn,
I always mess up his last name A love Drive.
(44:32):
Just for the record, Drive is a freaking fantastic film,
and Neon Demon is a work of art that I
thought highly of but will never watch again for the
rest of my life for various reasons. That's a very
different movie in and of itself. Darren, Have you seen
Drive with Ryan Gosling? Yes, you can see that director
(44:55):
giving us another equalizer similar to this.
Speaker 3 (44:58):
I mean, it's kind of the antithesis of Drive, because
I don't think Denzil has a car in this movie.
He takes like public transportation, yes, everywhere, So it's.
Speaker 2 (45:09):
But but in terms of the vibe of the main character.
Speaker 3 (45:12):
Yeah, they get in an elevator and it's all going
to go bad and yeah, you no, it's it's definitely
the same.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
Vibe, just the same question to you, can you see
I can't?
Speaker 4 (45:24):
No, I think it's I mean, you know, one of
my criticisms of Fukua was overstylizing.
Speaker 2 (45:31):
Some addas, and uh, okay, I see where you're going
with this.
Speaker 4 (45:37):
That's all you really need to say with refin in
the in the conversation, that's all you would get.
Speaker 2 (45:42):
That is very very true. Yes, and I love al.
On the Wikipedia page it says the deal with Sony
fell through for unknown reasons, and I'm just willing to
bet there was some request for the film or like
he said, this is how I would approach it, and
the exacts relfe huh no. And then they went in
(46:03):
to god fuquah.
Speaker 4 (46:04):
Alright, So so Dinzel, all right, he blows off this
dude's head with a shotgun. We see it in slow motion,
all right, But the thing is the head grows back
because he's a vampire. Boom end of movie, yes.
Speaker 2 (46:16):
Or something like. And then he takes all of the
pieces and he puts them together like a puzzle. Afterwards,
something twist.
Speaker 3 (46:23):
He was blade all along.
Speaker 4 (46:25):
Yes, okay, all right, Darren just took it into could
be a good movie territory.
Speaker 2 (46:32):
That's true.
Speaker 3 (46:33):
Believe that happens the last ten seconds with Catches, they
get tossed.
Speaker 2 (46:40):
Yeah, Catches.
Speaker 4 (46:41):
It puts him on these monsters keep trying to ice
skate up hill.
Speaker 2 (46:46):
So here we are. We've gone through the film, We've
discussed this work from Antoine Fuquah, and so we come
to the point of rating this film. And so I
am going to throw it to Tristan first because I
feel like if we start with Tristan, Darren, we got
(47:07):
nowhere to go but up. And so let's see if
I'm right, Tristan, where are you landing on the five
star scale of stars? We always try to do something.
How many nail guns are you going to give the equalizer?
Speaker 4 (47:23):
Okay, So I'm not going to repeat myself because you
guys have heard my points, my thought process. You hear me,
but you don't agree with me. Yes, Now, what I
will do is I will talk about the end. So
this guy is supposed to be in hiding and no
one's supposed to know who he is or what he
can do. And then half of the home depot staff
(47:47):
sees him kick mobster ass and he kills a lot
of people, a lot of people, and he single handedly
takes out Russian mob on the East coast and travels
to Moscow to finish the job.
Speaker 2 (48:07):
Sure does.
Speaker 4 (48:08):
And then he comes home, buys groceries, yes, and goes
to his to his favorite diner like nothing happened. Yes, okay, sir, Yes,
questions will be asked your your coworkers will go, dude,
what the hell was that. More importantly, the police will
(48:31):
have questions for him. You can't just go back to
your life and pretend all of that didn't happen. He
broke a lot of loss, and people know who he
is and where it is now equal now like okay,
So like I was already having a frustrating watch and
then that happened, and I'm like what because okay, we're
(48:56):
not in this is I'm going to reference John Wick,
Agan and John Wick. It's it's this weird alternate reverse
where there's this secret society where assassins pay for body
pickup in coins. Okay, that's otherworldly nonsense. It's supposed to
be fictional and fun and different, unique and weird. We
(49:16):
get it. It's a hyper reality. This movie is not
presented as hyperreality. You can't just murder the mob and
travel to Moscow, kill the head of the snake, chop
off the head of the snake, and come back and
buy groceries. This isn't This is not Grand Theft Auto,
where if the police don't capture you after five minutes,
(49:37):
they give up searching for you. This is two and
a half stars generously.
Speaker 2 (49:43):
I hear you. I'm going to disagree because I think
that by its very nature of existence, it's hyperreality. I
mean you can take a look at the way they
very carefully craft the action scenes, they have, the stories,
everything like that. There is absolutely nothing realistic about this.
(50:06):
It is every bit as hyper reality as John Wick.
Oh no, no, even yes, no, I'm absolutely right about
this close. That is a minute about No, it is
not a cop out because the minute you see him
take them apart in twenty eight seconds and the way
he does it, I'm like, Okay, I get it. This
is the type of movie that we're in. This is
(50:27):
same type of universe building as John Wick. This is
same type of parallel reality strictly on the mounds that opening,
that opening fight doesn't even come close to mirroring how
reality functions.
Speaker 4 (50:40):
Yeah, so you know, it was weird that they added
in the scene where he threw down some gold pirate
coins in order to pay his tab at the Russian bar,
and then like he drives away in a Jaguar. Now
you know, like, yeah, that souped up Jaguar with all
that hyper music and yeah, and then all of a
sudden on a Dharmas comes out and just starts perioetting,
(51:00):
and then like there's a there's a person with like
knives on her feet. Yeah, this is totally on the
same level as that.
Speaker 2 (51:06):
Well, I haven't seen Ballerina and I tapped out after
john Wick three, so maybe there's something I'm missing. Anyway,
I think this is a solid entertainment from beginning to finish.
I'm not looking for anything beyond what it is, which
is not my way of like doing one of those
like Caddy Internet comments toward you, Tristan. It all like
it declared itself to me, and I declared my love
(51:30):
for it after that first fight. So this is a
solid four for me. This is really great entertainment from
beginning to finish. I really enjoy this. Yes, I agree
it could be trimmed down. Yes, I agree. There are
certain scenes where it's like, Okay, this scene could be
about three quarters this length. But you know what, I'm
willing to go with it because, like I said, it
(51:50):
slides into a groove and I'm grooving with it. Darren
Tristan gives it two and a half. I give it
for I don't think I'm getting more than a four Outnue.
But are we backsliding back towards Tristan or are we holding?
Are we equalizing?
Speaker 4 (52:06):
Oh jeez, they're raising No.
Speaker 3 (52:10):
This was This was a really fun movie. I really
enjoyed watching it. It did really well at the box office.
It made almost two hundred million on like a fifty
five seventy million budgets, So that means there's gonna be sequels, gentlemen.
Oh yes, and yeah, the you know from the opening part,
the opening fight, when he is kind of looking around
(52:32):
at everything. I don't know about you guys, but I
was getting flashbacks to Robert Downey Junior's Sherlock Holmes without
the narration where he's like, you know, planning out his moves.
He was more like sizing up the room. Like. It
wasn't as so far as like and then I'm gonna
stab him. It's more like he has a knife, file
that away for ten seconds from now. So I really
(52:54):
like that, Like it worked really well. I love the
way I viewed it at the very end when he's
you know, in the sprinkler rain and it's looking you know,
zubin it on his eye. They really like zubinan on
his eye.
Speaker 2 (53:07):
But but I loved.
Speaker 3 (53:09):
The end shot where he it's like he's crying but
not crying because the tears are from the rain, not
from They're from the outside, not from the inside. I
was like, oh, I don't think. I don't know if
that was intentional, but it feels very poetic. But no,
I'm given this four stars. I really enjoyed this movie.
(53:29):
Yes it's kicking off. I think it's going to be
a great franchise. And I'm I still can't believe he
did all this without a car. So that's that's there's
no chase sequence.
Speaker 2 (53:42):
That's oh, just you wait until you see the next one,
and they yeah, you'll you'll understand. So all that said,
we've had a lot of fun here in the House
of Fuquah looking at these films, and you know, the Equalizer,
It seems to have split us, but I find myself
satisfied with these films. And Darren, you know, why don't
(54:06):
you take us out? What's coming up next?
Speaker 3 (54:08):
Well, we had a great time visiting three decades of
Antoine and next we're going to be covering the mechas
of the nineties with Back to the Future Part three.
Here on, house Lights
Speaker 1 (54:21):
Join the Revolution, join the ned Party,
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