That’s doubly true when what we get instead is a protracted setup emphasizing McCall’s camaraderie with his fellow stock boys and cashiers, including a jovial, overweight aspiring security guard (Johnny Skourtis) whom McCall puts through the paces of a vigorous diet and exercise regimen. When a battered Teri ends up in the hospital clinging to life, something long dormant in McCall begins to stir, though by this point we’re already more than 30 minutes into “The Equalizer” - an overly generous assumption of how long the audience for this kind of movie is willing to wait for the ass-whooping to begin. In an odd flourish that at times makes Fuqua’s film feel like a cross between “Death Wish” and “Reading Rainbow,” this McCall is also a passionate bookworm, who spends his long, lonely nights leafing through Hemingway and Cervantes in one of those retro, backlot diners where everybody knows your name - especially Teri ( Chloe Grace Moretz), the gold-hearted Russian hooker with recording-artist dreams, who makes small talk with McCall whenever she isn’t being roughed-up by her thuggish pimp. Although he shares a character name and skill set with his TV predecessor, Washington’s Robert McCall is otherwise, literally and figuratively, an Equalizer of a different color: a childless widower (instead of a divorcee with an estranged son) who takes public transit (rather than tooling around in a sleek black Jaguar) and maintains his anonymity by working as a sales associate at a Home Depot-type superstore (in lieu of advertising his special services in the classified ads).

Movie the equalizer