The Equalizer(2014)

Plot Summary

• Robert McCall (Denzel Washington) is a retired black ops government operative who lives in Boston, Massachusetts and works at a Home Mart hardware store, where he befriends many of his co-workers and also tries to help a security guard trainee named Ralphie (Johnny Skourtis) pass his qualification exam. McCall is helping Ralphie lose weight by monitoring his diet and asking him to eat healthy food instead of junk. McCall leads an organized and disciplined life and keeps mostly to himself.Unable to sleep, Robert often spends late nights reading at an all-night diner, where he befriends Teri, a prostitute. One evening, Teri shares that her real name is Alina and that she dreams of becoming a singer. McCall has promised his recently deceased wife that he'd leave his old life behind but is compelled to act after his teenage friend Teri (Chloe Grace Moretz), whose real name is Alina, was seen being mistreated by her pimp. Alina's life was destroyed at the age of five or six when she was a victim of sex trafficking by the Russian Mafia and then became their sex slave and forced into prostitution.Robert and Alina take a stroll, but Alina's pimp Slavi (David Meunier) abruptly arrives, hits Alina and forces her into a car. Slavi wanted Alina to service a customer, but she knew that the customer was very rough and did not want to go. Slavi hands Robert a business card for their escort service before driving away. A few nights later, a badly injured Alina is admitted to the ICU at a nearby hospital. Upon hearing the news, Robert learns from her friend Mandy (Haley Bennett) that Slavi is responsible for her condition.McCall enters a restaurant owned by the Russian mob and tries to convince Slavi to release Alina by paying him $9800, but Slavi declines the offer. McCall pretends to walk away but turns back and kills Slavi and four of his men with their own weapons, removing the footage from all the security cameras. Unbeknownst to Robert, Slavi and his men are part of a much larger crime syndicate led by Vladimir Pushkin, a Russian oligarch.In retaliation, Vladimir Pushkin (Vladimir Kulich) sends his enforcer Teddy (Marton Csokas) to Boston to find and eliminate the culprit. Aided by Boston police detectives on Pushkin's payroll, Teddy canvases rival gangs in the area, nearly beating Irish mob lieutenant "Little John" Looney to death to send a message. McCall, however, outsmarts his pursuers and escapes, while completing more acts of vigilantism.Meanwhile, Ralph withdraws his application for being a security guard at Home Mart to help out his mother at his family restaurant, which was set on fire by corrupt policemen as an act of extortion. McCall confronts the corrupt policemen and forces them to pay back all the money they have gotten through extortion. Ralph passes his test and becomes a security guard at Home Mart. McCall beats a gunman with a hammer after the gunman robs the hardware store, taking a coworker's heirloom ring from her.Teddy determines McCall is the culprit. He is surprised by the skill sets McCall possesses, and Teddy decides to capture and press-gang him into their service, instead of killing him. Teddy kills Mandy after learning that she has concealed information about Robert and lied about her friendship with Alina. Teddy visits Robert at his apartment posing as a detective and shows the picture of Mandy's body as a warning before walking away.McCall visits fellow retired operatives Susan Plummer (Melissa Leo) and her husband Brian Plummer (Bill Pullman) in Virginia, who help him acquire intelligence on Pushkin's activities. Susan informs him of Pushkin's operation and that Teddy's real name is Nicolai Itchenko, a Spetsnaz operative turned Russian secret police agent. Susan also reveals that Nicolai murdered two of the Boston police detectives and that another one of them named Frank Masters (David Harbour) had not been heard from for days. After McCall leaves, Susan remarks to Brian that McCall was not actually looking for help but was actually asking for permission.McCall then captures Frank Masters (David Harbour), a corrupt Boston policeman who has been aiding Teddy, by trapping him in his car and flooding the vehicle with carbon monoxide to force him to cooperate. Frank relents and helps McCall destroy one of Pushkin's money laundering operations in Boston. Masters and Pushkin's men are taken into custody when the police arrive, and they find a note left by Robert to "follow the money." He confronts Nicolai again, threatening to commit more damage if he continues to pursue him.McCall pledges to bring Pushkin's empire down, and soon destroys a container ship used by Pushkin to smuggle goods. Unsatisfied with Teddy's lack of progress and his increasing monetary losses, Pushkin warns Teddy he can either kill McCall or not come home to Moscow.In retaliation, Teddy and his men attack Home Mart and take Ralph and the workers of Home Mart hostage, threatening to kill them if McCall does not surrender. To Nicolai's surprise, Robert skips the meeting. McCall enters the store and disables most of the lighting, tells Ralph to get the hostages to safety, and then kills Teddy's henchmen one by one with improvised weapons collected throughout the hardware store. After a struggle between McCall and one of Teddy's men, Ralph comes back to help McCall but is shot in the leg. McCall tells Ralph to turn on the electricity after an exact time of 40 seconds. McCall sets up small containers of propane and oxygen in a microwave. The electricity turns it on, causing an explosion that kills the last of Teddy's men. McCall finally kills Teddy with a nail gun.McCall then travels to Moscow and kills Pushkin's guards and sets up an electrical trap to kill Pushkin himself. McCall returns to Boston, where he reunites with Alina, who has recovered from her wounds and thanks him for giving her a second chance. McCall is inspired to continue using his skills to help people in need and posts an online advert, identifying himself as "The Equalizer". He soon receives another plea for help and agrees to answer it.

Storyline

• Robert McCall is a former special service commando who faked his own death in hopes of living out a quiet life. Instead, he comes out of his self-imposed retirement to save a young girl, and finds his desire for justice reawakened after coming face-to-face with members of a brutal Russian gang. McCall becomes the go-to man when the helpless require the kind of vengeance they would never find without his skills. Haunted by his mysterious past, Boston hardware store employee Robert McCall now leads a silent, low-profile existence to appease his inner demons. But the past always returns with a vengeance. And when Robert's platonic late-night companion Teri ends up in the hospital after a nearly fatal encounter with the brutal Russian mob, the insomniac ex-virtuoso of pain must again put his deadly skill set to good use. As the pitiless guardian angel equalises the odds, feral retribution rains down on everyone involved. Who will live to tell the tale when Robert's bloody ballet of death ends? — Nick Riganas