The Equalizer(더 이퀄라이저), 2014

감독: Antoine Fuqua

주연: Denzel Washington/Marton Csokas/Chloë Grace Moretz/David Harbour/Bill Pullman/Melissa Leo

로버트 맥콜 (Robert McCall)은 은퇴 한 해양 및 국방 정보원 요원으로, 최근에 사망 한 아내에게 한 약속을 지키며, 보스턴에서 조용히 생활하고 홈 마트 하드웨어 매장에서 일하며 조용히 생활을 하고 있었다.

 

새벽 2시만 되면 늘 잠에서 깨는 로버트 맥콜(덴젤 워싱턴). 불면증으로 이 시간이 되면 맥콜은 늘 책 한 권을 들고 다이너(미국24시간 식당)로 향한다. 가족도 친구도 없는 그는 아내가 남기고 간 ‘죽기 전에 읽어야 할 소설 100권’을 모두 읽는 것이 유일한 삶의 목표인것다.

어느 날, 어린 콜걸 테리(클로이 모레츠)가 맥콜에게 말을 건네는데..몇번의 다이너에서 주고받은 대화들은 동질감과 마음적인 의지를 느끼고 희망을 갖는 마음을 키워주기도 한다.

그러던 어느 날, 테리가 포주인 러시아 마피아에게 무자비하게 폭행을 당한 채로 병원에 입원을 하게된다. 분노가 폭발하고만 맥콜은 스스로 악한 세상을 향한 정의로운 폭력이 시작되는 story.

Robert McCall is a retired Marine and Defense Intelligence Agency operative who, after promising his recently deceased wife that he would leave his former activities behind, lives quietly in Boston and works at a Home Mart hardware store. McCall befriends many of his co-workers and helps a security guard trainee named Ralph pass his qualification exam. Unable to sleep, McCall spends some late nights reading in a 24/7 diner where he befriends Alina, a teenage prostitute for the Russian Mafia.

 

One night, Alina is hospitalized following a brutal beating by her pimp, Slavi. Hearing of the beating, McCall visits Alina's hospital room and speaks with her friend, Mandy. McCall tracks down Slavi at his office and offers to buy Alina's freedom. Slavi refuses, dismissing McCall as old and impotent. McCall then kills Slavi and four of his men with skillful close combat efficiency by using the men's own weapons, various objects in the office, and his bare hands.

 

Following the killings, Russian Mafia boss Vladimir Pushkin sends his enforcer, Teddy Rensen, to find and eliminate the culprit. In the meantime, Ralph withdraws his security guard application, going to work for his mother at the family restaurant. When McCall learns the restaurant was set on fire by corrupt policemen as an act of extortion, he confronts and beats the officers, forces them to pay back all the money they have extorted, and threatens to publicize their crimes. Ralph then returns to Home Mart and passes his test, becoming a security guard at the store.

 

In investigating the murders of Pushkin's henchmen, Rensen questions Alina's friend Mandy, who tells him that "a nice man--a black man" had come to visit Alina in the hospital. Mandy is then murdered by Rensen.

 

There is an armed robbery at the Home Mart in which a coworker's ring is stolen. After the ring is mysteriously returned, McCall is seen polishing a sledgehammer and putting it back in the store.

 

After finding video footage of McCall entering the building where the killings of Slavi and the other gangsters occurred, Rensen visits McCall at his apartment and later makes two attempts to capture him. However, McCall escapes after killing one of Rensen's men and knocking out another.

 

McCall then visits old friend and fellow former DIA operative Susan Plummer, who uses her resources to give him information on Pushkin and his operations. Plummer informs McCall that Teddy Rensen's true name is Nicolai Itchenko and that he is a former member of the Russian secret police and Spetsnaz. Plummer also gives McCall "permission" to break the promise to retire that he made to his late wife.

 

Stepping up his actions against Pushkin, McCall subdues and forces Frank Masters — a corrupt policeman working for Pushkin— to help destroy one of Pushkin's local money-laundering operations. From Masters, McCall obtains a memory stick loaded with information about Pushkin's illegal activities (including bribes of Congressmen and Senators), which he emails to the FBI. McCall then confronts Itchenko at a restaurant, revealing that he knows his history and pledging to bring down Pushkin's criminal enterprise. When McCall destroys a container ship Pushkin used to smuggle goods, Pushkin orders Itchenko to kill McCall.

 

Itchenko and his men go to Home Mart and take Ralph and several of McCall's other co-workers hostage, threatening to kill them if McCall does not surrender. McCall kills Itchenko's henchmen one by one using booby traps constructed with items in the store, but is wounded in the process. After a struggle between McCall and one of Itchenko's men, Ralph comes back to pull the injured McCall out of the store, but is shot in the leg himself. After Ralph escapes, McCall confronts Itchenko and kills him with a nail gun.

 

Later, McCall travels to Moscow and tricks Pushkin into electrocuting himself. On his return to the US, he is approached by Alina, who has recovered from her injuries and found a new job. She thanks him for giving her a second chance. McCall is inspired by this to continue using his skills to help people in need and posts an online advertisement, now identifying himself as "The Equalizer". He soon receives another plea and agrees to answer it.