‘The Equalizer’ was not the first film in which Denzel Washington embarked on a bloody quest for revenge. Ten years earlier there was already an action thriller in which the 69-year-old was not exactly squeamish about his opponents: ‘Man under Fire’ (2004), with which Tony Scott reinterpreted a French thriller from 1987.
Washington plays former CIA agent and counter-terrorism expert John Creasy, who is hired in Mexico City as a bodyguard for nine-year-old Lupita (Dakota Fanning, who reunited with Washington in “The Equalizer 3”). Of course it happens as it should: Lupita is kidnapped in the presence of the bodyguard and Creasy ends up in a coma after a gunfight. When he wakes up again, he decides to find the girl and kill everyone involved in the kidnapping…
Even when Creasy tries to get information about the girl’s whereabouts, he resorts to extremely drastic measures. In one particularly brutal scene, he tortures a corrupt police officer by cutting off several fingers. According to Washington, the scene caused a lot of controversy when Man Under Fire was first shown to a test audience – interestingly, especially among male viewers…
“During the test screenings, many men complained about the severed fingers, but surprisingly, almost no women complained.”the two-time Oscar winner (“Glory,” “Training Day”) told us . “This scene was originally even longer and more gruesome. But I think the theme of the movie makes it inevitable. It’s a film along the lines of ‘What would you do if this happened to you?’ He is the most heroic character I have ever portrayed.”
It is certainly questionable whether a character who, after receiving the desired information, without blinking an eye puts a bullet through the heads of tortured men, is actually fit to be a hero. But the (action) production is beyond dispute: twenty years later, Tony Scott’s restless editing storm seems almost avant-garde.