The parable of the Good Samaritan is arguably the most famous in the Bible.  You can find it in Luke 10:30-35.  It is also one that I have applied to other films.  Yet, The Equalizer 3 offers too tantalizing of parallels from it to not also insert into this discussion.  Further, it goes beyond simply being a reminder to be a good neighbor, as if that is something to be dismissed.  It is not, of course, and this film explores that aspect to a satisfying degree.  Where it becomes non-Biblical is in the violence.  I will explore that, too.  Anyway, we have a lot to cover!

Because I do not want to make these reviews too obnoxiously long, I am going to come out and tell you that Robert McCall (Denzel Washington) starts off in Sicily to track down money taken from an acquaintance back in Boston in a cyber-heist.  His reason for being there is not revealed until the end, and I grew slightly frustrated watching it until I got this answer.  Robert is a trained assassin, formerly of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), who at some point walked away from that life to use his skill set to help others.  You can read my review of The Equalizer (2014) for the rest of his background.  The Equalizer 3 does not spend any time on this subject, simply showing you how deadly he can be by taking you through a house full of dead bodies in the home of a crime syndicate boss, Lorenzo Vitale (Bruno Bilotta), who returns to find the bloody scene.  His vineyard is a front for drug smuggling, and Robert dispatches the rest of the henchmen after a brief discussion with Lorenzo.  This conversation involves giving his intended victims a choice to walk away, which they never take.  On his way out, however, he is shot in the back by Lorenzo’s young son.  Severely wounded, he manages to get his car onto a ferry back to Naples, and is found slumped over the wheel by Gio Bonucci (Eugenio Mastrandrea).  He is law enforcement for this somewhat remote part of Italy.  Yet, instead of taking Robert to a hospital, he brings the injured man to Enzo Arisio (Remo Girone), the local doctor in the picturesque seaside village of Altamonte.  Enzo nurses Robert back to health, and generously offers his home for convalescence.  Robert, being the man of strict habits that he is, becomes recognized by a few of the locals, particularly at the café where he goes to have his daily cup of tea.  As he goes about his business, he puts in a call to Emma Collins-Plummer (Dakota Fanning), an agent working the same global financial operations that brought Robert to Sicily.  We later learn that she is the daughter of the husband and wife team that handled Robert when he worked for the Agency.  Robert informs Emma about the vineyard, and she goes there and finds a hoard of illegal substances and money.  Meanwhile, certain comings and goings in Altamonte also attract Robert’s attention.  Specifically, he notices the neighborhood fishmonger being intimidated by Marco Quaranta (Andrea Dodero) and a number of accompanying thugs.  Marco is brother to Vincent Quaranta, the head of the mafia family known as the Camorra.  It is Vincent that is responsible for the drug operation stumbled upon by Robert, and further dismantled by Emma.  His goal is to take over Mediterranean coast of Italy, turning it into his personal empire of illicit activities.  Altamonte is part of what he intends to be his vast holdings.  We also see that he is not above doing whatever he likes to achieve this goal, intimidating or killing anyone he perceives to stand in his way.  When he learns about Emma’s investigations from Chief Barella (Adolfo Margiotta), the top police officer in Italy, Vincent orders her execution.  A timely phone call from Robert saves Emma from dying in a car bomb.  Meanwhile, Vincent sends Marco back to Almonte to brutally convince the locals to do the Camorra’s bidding.  Marco starts by threatening Gio and his family.  The first of these incidents comes in the Bonucci home.  The second more brazen incident takes place in the little restaurant in town, and on a night that Robert happens to be sitting at the table in the corner.  It does not take Marco long to notice Robert staring at him from his seat.  Leaving the Bonuccis for the moment, Marco tries to make a show of force instead with Robert.  As before, Robert gives the young criminal a chance for him and his men to take their nonsense elsewhere.  Also as before, it is refused and Robert murders them all outside in the street.  A furious Vincent brings a large number of armed men back to Altamonte and, holding a gun to Gio’s head, demands that somebody step forward and give up the person responsible for Marco’s death.  Robert emerges from the shadows, asking that they take him and spare the rest of the town.  It takes Enzo appearing with a gun to turn the tables, and everyone is spared when more police arrive.  The next night, with Altamonte celebrating the Virgin Mary, Robert pays a visit to the Quaranta home and does again what you had seen the aftermath of in the beginning.  Robert kills Vincent by forcing the leader of Camorra to overdose on the drugs he had been importing, watching Vincent slowly die stumbling through the streets of Naples.  Robert later visits Emma in the hospital, giving her the money he had taken for the person back in Boston.  He also later sends her a clue as to his identity in the form of a contact book given him by her mother.  He then goes back to Altamonte and hopefully a peaceful retirement.

I used the phrased “peaceful retirement” in the last sentence because I hope The Equalizer 3 is the last in the franchise.  I do not mean to suggest that it is a bad movie, though I did have my doubts after the debacle that is The Equalizer 2.  I saw that one once, before I started The Legionnaire, and have yet to pluck up the desire to see it again to write about it.  Whatever it is, The Equalizer 3 is a vast improvement.  Still, not to sound agist, but Denzel Washington is not getting any younger.  With the right editing, you can make a man in his late sixties look like he can move like somebody roughly half that age.  There are other reasons not to want to see anymore iterations of this character.  The main one pertains to what I mentioned in the introduction in its departure from the Good Samaritan story.  Luke does not tell us that this traveler that happened about an injured man on the side of the road went on to murder those responsible for this attack.  Instead, the kind-hearted passer-by looked to the needs of a wounded individual.  In other words, he cared for life instead of seeking an eye-for-an-eye.  While watching the movie, I struggled with this notion.  On the one hand, the people Robert goes after are clearly bad people.  He also does offer them the opportunity to, essentially, turn their lives around.  All the same, the title suggest a brand of justice that is God’s alone.  Too many people, Christians included, see this form of remediation as fitting.  I am not sure this is a very Christian attitude to have.

Despite the violence, The Equalizer 3 underscores an important component of the Good Samaritan parable, and that is being in the right place at the right time.  A repeated phrase in the movie is that Robert is where he is supposed to be. Though it is not directly said, there is a clear connection to Christianity.  There are some obvious inferences, such as the figure of St. Michael the Archangel figuring prominently into the sequence in the Quaranta mansion.  The parallel between St. Michael and Robert relies on a skewed view of Divine justice.  The Archangel’s ultimate enemy is evil incarnate, the devil, and he is an instrument in God’s hands in this struggle.  Even if Vincent were to escape Robert or Italian authorities, it is likely a worse fate awaits him because of his crimes.  On the subject of God’s timing, though, there is an even deeper reference.  In one scene, you briefly see the image of St. Maria Goretti.  She was an Italian martyr, raped and murdered in 1902.  One could look at her story as being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but this is not the whole picture.  She forgave her attacker on her deathbed, which later led to him begging for forgiveness for his sins and changing his life.  The point here is that St. Maria Goretti’s actions not only ensured her place in Heaven, but had a positive impact on another, and all without resorting to violence against her persecutor.  Robert does offer this when Vincent comes to Altamonte and holds Gio hostage, but seemingly only because he did not have a chance of taking on all the gunmen in public.  Overall, though, Robert is right in the sense that God puts us where He wants us.  It is up to us to make the most of those situations.

I was worried for a moment that The Equalizer 3 was going to be one of those movies that showed the bad guys being a part of institutional Catholicism as Vincent is the only one seen attending Mass.  Yet, this turned out to be a mistake when you have Robert shoulder-to-shoulder with the local priest during the confrontation with Vincent’s forces in Altamonte.  The village processing with the statue of the Virgin Mary also warmed my Catholic heart.  It is these moments that are far more interesting than any of the standard violence you see.  If you can handle the blood, then this one gets a cautious recommendation.