What extreme deaths have Denzel Washington and director Antoine Fuqua designed for us this time? “The Equalizer 3” marks the fifth time the pair have collaborated after the first two “Equalizer” films, the 2016 remake of “The Magnificent Seven” and, most notably, their Oscar-winning crime thriller ” Training Day”. Short of the latest film, the duo’s films have mostly taken the form of slick, macho meat-and-potatoes over non-superhero righteous actors doing justice to the world’s bad men. With little financial incentive to change that formula (and being the third entry in a franchise that was never exactly a critical darling), we can probably expect more of the same with the third “Equalizer.”
There will be a change of scenery this time, however, as Fuqua filmed the latest “Equalizer” sequel in various locations in Italy after filming most of the first two movies in and around Boston. Series writer Richard Wenk also returned to write the script for the series, with actors such as Sonia Ben Ammar, Andrea Dodero, Remo Girone, Eugenio Mastrandrea, Daniele Perrone, Andrea Scarduzio, and Gaia Scodellaro joining Washington and Dakota Fanning in the cast. The real question is, will any of the movie’s villains have a death as memorably nasty as the corkscrew death of the first movie?
“The Equalizer 3” opens in theaters on September 1, 2023. Its official synopsis reads as follows:
Since giving up his life as a government assassin, Robert McCall (Denzel Washington) has struggled to reconcile the horrible things he’s done in the past and finds strange solace in delivering justice on behalf of the oppressed. Finding himself surprisingly at home in southern Italy, he discovers that his new friends are under the control of local crime bosses. As events turn deadly, McCall knows what he has to do: become his friends’ protector by taking on the mob.