Equalizer 3 on TF1: Denzel Washington towards the setting sun (review)

The Italian conclusion for Denzel Washington’s vigilant franchise: a western that balances between immobility and ultra-violence.

Three years after its cinema release, Equalizer 3 is broadcast for the first time unencrypted on television, this Sunday evening on TF1. Is the final opus worn by Denzel Washington worth it? Here is our review.

Equalizer, at heart, is a western: the original 80’s series was the heir, updated and modernized, of programs like In the Name of the Law with Steve McQueen or Have Gun – Will Travel with Richard Boone; series with a lone vigilante wreaking vengeance with gunpowder and cannon in the name of those who deserve it. And as a conclusion, Equalizer 3 fully embraces this western heritage by trapping its wounded hero in a small, isolated and quiet town in southern Italy – a small town which is threatened by a gang of violent mafiosi and which will be defended with guns drawn by its new honorary citizen. Suffice to say that it could take place on the Border, around 1860. Here, we are in 2023, and the film feels obliged to combine this plot with another, very unconvincing one, of drug trafficking organized by Daesh terrorists (because what is worse than a terrorist or a drug dealer in the cinema? A terrorist-dealer, surely)…