FILM: The Equalizer (dir: Antoine Fuqua, 2014)

"If you play with the rain, you have to deal with the mud."

This re-teaming of Fuqua and Washington is undoubtedly well-made, gorgeously lensed (all dawn/dusk and neon-washed nights) and is superbly edited.  However, for an action film, it is extraordinarily ponderous, with an extremely simple story stretched achingly over more than two hours.  Denzel Washington gives a stoic and wonderfully-controlled central performance, and Chloe Moretz does well with little screen time to bookend the story.  The brief bursts of action are well-staged and effective, but the overall crawling pace makes the film worthy and great-looking but a little unengaging.