The Couch Critic
The Couch Critic is your laid-back guide to movies and TV shows that deserve your attention—or maybe don’t. Nathan dives deep into storytelling, character development, and cinematic style with a sharp eye and a wry sense of humor. Whether it’s a blockbuster hit, a hidden gem, or a cult classic, Nathan’s relatable approach ensures every episode feels like a cozy chat with a friend who just happens to love film. Perfect for casual watchers and cinephiles alike, The Couch Critic brings thoughtful critique without the fluff. Grab your favorite snack, settle in, and let Nathan guide you through the world of screen entertainment.
The Couch Critic
Decoding 'Equalizer 3': A Discussion of Plot, Characters and Adaptations
Ready for some heart-pounding action and behind-the-scenes insights? Join us as we tear into the latest installment of the Equalizer franchise, Equalizer 3, featuring the inimitable Denzel Washington and Dakota Fanning. We'll unmask the British origins of this franchise and dive into the fresh TV adaptation featuring the formidable Queen Latifa. Katy shares her passion for the film, revealing her favorite moments and how the heartwarming ending stirred her emotions.
With a scalpel-like precision, we dissect the exciting plot of Equalizer 3, examining the film's transitions and the execution of fight scenes. Denzel Washington's gritty portrayal of his character and his tactics is up for discussion, as is Dakota Fanning's key role in the movie. And there's more! We have Scotty, Katy's husband AND a medical professional, joining us to lend an amusing yet insightful perspective on the realism of certain scenes. So tune in, and let's immerse ourselves in this thrilling exploration of Equalizer 3 and the larger franchise it belongs to. We guarantee an episode full of revelations and lively discussions!
One's a movie buff, one watches movies, just enough Together. Fun will be had by all. This is Nadie and Katie at the Movies.
Speaker 2:Hello everyone and welcome to another brand new episode of Nadie and Katie at the Movies. I'm your host, nathan aka Nadie, of course, and with me again is not one, but two special guest co-hosts it's my good friend Katie and her hubby Scotty. Hi guys, how are you?
Speaker 3:We're doing so well. We're just holding hands as we report this podcast because we're so in love.
Speaker 2:That's so sweet.
Speaker 3:It's just because we came back from a romantic date. What did we do on a romantic date, honey?
Speaker 4:We went and watched the Equalizer 3.
Speaker 2:That's right, we're talking about Equalizer 3, the third and supposed final movie in the Equalizer franchise, starring the one and only Denzel Washington. But before we get into the movie, we got to go over the synopsis. Equalizer 3 has Robert McCall finding himself at home in southern Italy, but he discovers his friends are under the control of local crime bosses. As events turn deadly, mccall knows what he has to do.
Speaker 1:Become his friends protector by taking on the mafia.
Speaker 2:Equalizer 3 stars Denzel Washington, Dakota Fanning and Eugene O Mastradia.
Speaker 3:You nailed that name. You did much better with your Italian names than your Spanish names.
Speaker 2:I mean, what can I say? I love doing accents, and I guess that's just paid off with this one.
Speaker 3:I didn't even realize that was Dakota Fanning. I mean I hadn't seen her since she was a kid and Scott leans over and he's like I'm thinking I think that's Dakota. It's kind of fun, I hadn't seen her in a minute.
Speaker 2:Well, and that was like one of the biggest reveals in the trailer is that Dakota Fanning was in this and she and Denzel Washington had been in a movie together man on Fire and this is the first time they've been in a movie together since I think she was nine years old, so it's been a while. So that was like kind of the big draw for some people because they're like, oh my gosh, they're in a movie together again. But we'll get into why I am not a big fan of her being in it. Because of they use, basically used her to tie into the other two movies. I don't want to get too ahead of myself, because that's one of my, that's one of my dislikes. So, katie, whenever we watch a movie that has more than one movie in a franchise, I have to know did you ever watch Equalizer and Equalizer 2?
Speaker 3:I have seen neither one. I don't think I've seen like any of them other than trailers, but I've seen enough clips that I was aware of some of the hooks. So and then think, as they're mentioned in the trailer, things like you have nine seconds and I understood the premise. From what I understand, every, every single one is the same premise that he's a good guy, mind his own business, trying to help people just who he comes across like random people who he sees injustices towards. So I'm assuming I don't know. Scott said I didn't miss out on too much from the other movies, but it sounds like there was a lot of Easter eggs I missed.
Speaker 2:Well, this one, like the first two, kind of connected a lot more than this third one did, like they slightly connected to the first two when he has like a vision of him and his friend talking, and then the big quote unquote twist at the end with Dakota Fanning and who she ends up being, which I really did not care about and it didn't make sense to me that they did that. But did you know that the equalizer is based on a British TV show?
Speaker 3:No, did you know?
Speaker 2:that honey no no never heard of that.
Speaker 3:I think that's the ramp up, because there's nothing British seeming at all about anything from this or anything I've seen about Equalizer.
Speaker 2:Well, and now they have another Equalizer show, with Queen Latifa playing the starring role.
Speaker 3:Interesting. Okay, is it the same concept in terms of gruesome, horrible deaths, all committed by just one person in the name of justice?
Speaker 2:Well, basically the whole premise of the show was that he was like an ex-CIA agent who basically becomes kind of like the type of person that people reach out to to help them with certain issues, like he becomes like a private investigator, but he takes matters into his own hands. I don't think the show is as gruesome as these movies were, but it kind of has the same premise, especially, I think, at the end of the first one. He gets on his computer and he starts like chatting with someone and saying, hey, I need help with this. He's like I'm available, and so they kind of hinted that that's where they were going, even though they didn't really go in that direction in the second one and in this one. But anyway, we're going down a rabbit hole. Let's go right to our likes and dislikes. Katie, what is one thing that you liked about Equalizer 3?
Speaker 3:Getting to see it with my husband.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's lame. But seriously what's a really good like.
Speaker 3:Man see, I'm not even joking because I don't know that I have a ton of really good things. I liked the acting, I guess, Like I thought Dakota Fanning was good, I thought Denzel Washington was good, the bad guy seemed like an actually bad guy. There was no acting that took me out of the movie. I liked the town and the townspeople. They were definitely endearing. You know they wanted to be the movie wanted you to kind of find them endearing. And the sweet, cute little town. They pulled all that off pretty well. What do you think? Did you like the acting?
Speaker 4:I thought it was okay. I feel like I had more emotions solicited at the end when they returned the guy's pension money to him than I did at any other point in the movie.
Speaker 2:That's true, I think one of my biggest likes is I'm a big old Denzel Washington fan and I love him as his character, even though there were certain things in this movie that I wish they did, that they didn't do, that they kind of hinted that they were going to do. Like the whole, I thought he was going to have a crisis of faith and be like, should I really be doing this? Should I really be killing all these people? And like there's that moment where he looks at the cross for like a couple of seconds and I'm thinking, okay, this is going to be like a redemption movie and he's going to end up being like I don't have to kill all these people. I can actually, you know, call the police and let them take care of the bad guys. And then no, that's not, that's not what happens at all. He looks at the cross and I guess Jesus says to him go kill those people, robert.
Speaker 3:Yeah yeah, justice of my name, yeah Well, and so acting was a good thing, but then I also think it might go off acting a little bit. I think Denzel does a good job, and so does the producers, to make it realistic in terms of his age and his fighting, like it wasn't one of those John Wick movies where, like that's totally unrealistic, that's totally unrealistic. He gets shot really early in the movie and they actually force him Like he's on a cane and limping a lot of the movie, like recovering, like there's not a ton of action for a lot of movie because he's physically still recovering, and so I appreciated that they didn't try to be unrealistic. Like you know, mission impossible Tom Cruise type thing. Now, you know, scott is a medical person.
Speaker 4:And there's a few times. Scott is the greatest one for him. There's no connection between that and his leg, Unless you hit nerve-asculine or something. He's no good back. You shouldn't need the cane. He was a little big beforehand.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I love, I love hearing Scott's medical. So what else, in terms of the some of the violence, like like when he pinches the guy's hand, is that like a realistic thing?
Speaker 4:No, no, it's uncomfortable, it's not. It's not going to put someone on the table. Also, you're not going to be able to drop people the way that he does.
Speaker 3:Maybe, oh, you mean like immediately die.
Speaker 4:He knifed them one time and they just soundlessly dropped to the floor Like there's very few things that you might hit that'll effectively do that.
Speaker 3:This is what happens when we go to the other thing.
Speaker 4:One of the guys gets drugs, right.
Speaker 3:So Denzel uses this like drug to kill one of the guys and Scott leans over. He's like how does he know that? How much to give him? And how does he know that he's got this much time before the drug kicks in? He's like, how does he know much how he weighs? I was like stop thinking about it.
Speaker 2:Do you ever see taken? You know how Liam Neeson says I have a very specific set of skills. It's probably the exact same kind of set of skills that Denzel Washington has. That makes him a nightmare for men like that, and he will find them and he will literally kill them with a corkscrew if needed.
Speaker 4:Unreal? Yes, that would be. One of my big likes is the creativity you know, clear to the face. We got to poke her through the throat at one point.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's kind of like going back to taken. It's kind of like it's really cool to see older actors portray these kick butt characters Like and Denzel Washington isn't I don't think he's as old as Liam Neeson, but it's so cool to see that Denzel Washington can still kick butt and he's just. I just love him. And one thing I really liked about this movie is it's one of the few movies that I've seen in a while that everyone in the audience just vocally enjoyed it. Like there were moments where Denzel Washington would just say something really sarcastically or smart out and everyone in the audience would be laughing and it was like one of those were actually enjoying this movie together as an audience. It was just a really cool theater experience that that I enjoyed and it's all because of the awesomeness that is Denzel Washington.
Speaker 2:But let's go to some of the dislikes of this movie. I think before we started recording Scott, you said to me that it was kind of a slow burn and that was one of my dislikes. A lot of this movie was very slow. Even there'd be like an action moment and then it would be just go like boring crap that I didn't care about. I just wanted to see Denzel Washington beat up some people and take, take down, take down the crime family. I didn't need to see, like especially the Dakota fanning scenes. I mean I know, katie, you said you liked her in this. I thought her scenes just slow down the movie, scott I do.
Speaker 3:I do agree that it seemed like Scott and I both were waiting. We thought maybe her boss was going to like turn on her. It does make you wonder like what addition was her character in this whole movie? And yeah, I guess it's like you spent 15 minutes of airtime with all these scenes with her just to have some little comment at the end of that someone's daughter that he knows, and if that was her sole purpose in being the movie, so I do.
Speaker 3:I do get that point. She didn't serve a purpose, really. She didn't help anything.
Speaker 2:Her boss gave her credit for doing all this stuff, when it was actually Denzel Washington feeding her all this information the entire time, Like she really didn't do anything except almost die from a car bomb. And he did I mean Denzel Washington did everything.
Speaker 4:I'm not wrong. I also I felt like some transitions were abrupt, that we went from like we're slowly recuperating in town and I've made on contact with a guy in two times, and then all of a sudden I'm like throwing him on the table and commanding his people and then I murder him and his entire crew in the next scene. It just felt like cool, we went zero to 100 in 120 seconds here, Like I don't know what happened.
Speaker 3:You didn't even give the guy a chance to like. He's like you know, leave everyone alone. You didn't give a chance to leave everyone alone.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean he did, I mean the guy. The guy's basically said you know, stay out of our business. And it kind of goes back to the first one a little bit, like that's just how the character is. He stares people down, he, he's very observant, and and then they didn't really do this that much. They usually would like zoom in on his eye and he would like calculate everything that he was going to do and and how he was going to do it, which I thought was really cool. But they didn't really utilize that as much in this one as they did the first two. I kind of see what you're saying, but also, at the same time, it kind of reminds me of the first one with yes, he's very calm, he's very subdued. He's going to warn you once if you don't listen to him, he's going to slit your throat.
Speaker 3:Well, I think that's what's so nice too about, because he's an older guy. Like you don't see him taking punches right. It's not like a like an action movie in that way, Like he has to be so skilled that he knows he's going for the kill shot every time because he wouldn't be able to stand to blow if he got into a fist fight with some of these guys or knife fight. Now that you say that, it kind of does remind me. I feel like the movie went downhill, because the very, very first thing you see fight wise, where he's like sitting in a chair and he sets his little watch and he's like you've got nine seconds and he like describes he's like this guy's standing too close. So I'm going to have, if that had been all the fight scenes, like that was the best fight scene and that was just, and then it was over, because I thought every time he timed himself and then, like that just went away. But I thought that was kind of a core piece of the equalizer movies.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I think and they did that to to make you feel like, oh, I'm watching the old movie again, and then, like you said, they didn't really utilize it that much, you know later on in the movie. But let's go to Dakota Fanning again.
Speaker 3:So this is going to be your biggest dislike.
Speaker 2:This is my biggest dislike. But also, before we started recording, I started thinking about this movie and how it's based on a TV show. So each one is kind of like an episode, because if you remember the end of the second one, he ends up on the beach at his beach house, and you think that's where he's going to stay, that's where he's going to live. And then this one he's just randomly in Italy. So it makes no sense. But if you look at it like a TV show, it's kind of episodic. Each one's slightly different than the other, has a slight connection, which is what they did with Dakota Fanning. So big old spoiler.
Speaker 2:Dakota Fanning, at the end of the movie is revealed to be the daughter of Denzel Washington's best friend, who died in the second one. Now, my biggest gripe about this is that if she is his, her daughter, why not at some point in the first or second one? Did we never know that they had a daughter? What? And back to what you said, katie, it's basically that's literally the only reason Dakota Fanning was in this movie Was for that stupid twist at the end that I was like I really don't care who she is, because they never mentioned at all, you would think in the second one, when the mother frickin dies, that they would say or maybe they would have a scene where the dad's consoling his frickin daughter. No, they don't do that, because that would just make sense.
Speaker 3:Right, Well, and they could have. Even, I guess they had. No, I mean, they must have not in any way planned for Equalizer 3 when they ended to right, Because they could have had. Even if it was, they didn't know who was going to play that person, they could have had the back of the head or yeah, like just a little girl. But you're right, I mean that doesn't feel like there's a connection. I guess the other thing would be it's pretty unrealistic to expect that that she had no earthly idea who he is.
Speaker 2:I think they did kind of hint that they knew each other, because when they finally meet face to face, you know you don't sound like how you look or you don't look how you sound, and then at the end of the conversation she calls him by his name and I guess it's supposed to be like you're not supposed to know. That that's why she knows his name, because it's supposed to be a twist. At the end You're supposed to think, oh, she did research on him. But then now, looking back and the big reveal, did she say his name? Because she did know who he was?
Speaker 3:I don't think she knew, because she kept asking him. She's like why me, why me?
Speaker 2:Then the twist is even stupider.
Speaker 3:Any critiques in the movie. Would you recommend to see it? I mean, that's kind of my big thing.
Speaker 4:Would you?
Speaker 3:say, hey, go see this in the theater. I don't know about in the theater.
Speaker 4:I feel like at home on Netflix. Maybe it was exactly what I expected for the kind of movie that it was. I don't feel like it was exceptional, but it also wasn't bad. It was entertaining. I wanted to see some people fight. They thought that was good it was. I don't know. It was what I anticipated.
Speaker 2:Well, apparently that's what a lot of people thought, because it is doing really, really well in the box office, so maybe it'll lead to a fourth one, even though it's supposed to be the last one.
Speaker 3:Yikes Denzel's gonna be at 75.
Speaker 3:It feels like the opposite of Gran Turismo, which we reviewed last week, which is I went and saw that kind of excited about it, kind of thinking, well, it's gonna be really good. Equalizer is like a good series and so they're doing all the box office just because everyone wants to see it, not because it's a good movie, they just wanna go see the third one and whereas you know Gran Turismo not excited to see it ended up seeing it. It was like wait, this is actually a secretly good, super good movie. So, yeah, I definitely wouldn't recommend and I agree with Scott like none of the action scenes are just so big that you have to see it on the big screen.
Speaker 2:But if you're a Denzel Washington fan should you go see it.
Speaker 3:Sure.
Speaker 2:I mean, I think, if anything, he is the main reason to go see it. I think his performance was really good. He was really funny, he was cool, he was collected, he killed people, he beat people up and he reunited with Dakota Fanning, which was kind of cool, I guess, if you really cared about that. So let's go right to our ratings. Katie, what would you give Equalizer 3? One out of six stars? Which one would you give it?
Speaker 3:Oh well, Scott and I are one unit because we're married, so we'll just answer together. Honey, what is our answer out of six stars?
Speaker 4:Say it's a strong 3.5.
Speaker 3:Yep, I was gonna say three, so 3.25 for the Harrington House.
Speaker 2:And I'm gonna give Equalizer 3 a strong 4 because I loved Enzo Washington. So that is Equalizer 3. We got a 4, we got a 3.5, and we got a 3.25. Next up is an episode that Katie will not be on because she's a little scaredy baby.
Speaker 3:I really am.
Speaker 2:That's right, I'm gonna go see the Nun 2. And I may have a special guest co-host. We'll see. I won't tell you who it is because they might not be on the show?
Speaker 3:Yeah, and it definitely won't be me, because I don't want none to do with that.
Speaker 2:Ba da, ba, ba da ba. Hey, how are we gonna end this episode of Equalizer 3, scott?
Speaker 4:That's a great question.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to Nati and Katie at the Movies. Feel free to leave us a review so people can find the show. Follow us on all our social media platforms and if there's a movie that you want us to watch, feel free to contact us at natiandkateyatgmailcom. Thanks for listening and have a great day.
