In Antoine Fuqua’s Equalizer 3, the mysterious, reclusive, and unstoppable vigilante played by actor Denzel Washington is back in the spotlight.
This time, the CIA assassin is in Italy, in a village close to Naples, where he takes out the local mob, the Camorra, and challenges the Neapolitan mafia for supremacy.
“Personally, I’ve always been fascinated with the Camorra. You know, they’re certainly a unique group that’s not your father’s ‘Godfather’ type of guys. You know, they’re wilder, younger, you know, more vicious, even. I know a lot of the Italians would say they’re the barbarians of that type. You know, I think that people want to always look at Italy as the old world, the beauty of Italy and the art of Italy. And they forget that under all that beauty is this other thing that’s just as much a part of it. And it’s constantly changing with the times and who they do business with and how they move. So, I’m fascinated with it. I think it’s just it’s – it is Italy, you know,” explained the director.
Fuqua claims that the paradoxes of the setting captivated him for the third and final installment, despite the difficulties of filming in a tiny Italian fishing hamlet.
“The biggest challenge was filming in a small fishing town. And there’s – there’s no infrastructure for movies there, right? And you move out there, you know, you move at their pace, man. You know, you’re not going to tell the old lady that’s been going up the steps her whole life, she’s got to move because she’s getting in the shot. You’ve got to put her in the shot, you know? So, it was like slowing down, respecting the culture, respecting the language, and getting a rhythm with everybody. But that’s really, to me, the biggest challenge was really settling into the culture,” added Antoine Fuqua.
Regarding faith, this film, unlike the other two, makes Catholic iconography a central theme. Appropriate, since the kind of justice dispensed by this saintly surrogate would not be out of place in the pages of the Old Testament.
Due to the SAG and WGA writers’ strikes, Antoine Fuqua had to promote the film without his actors by his side.
The Equalizer 3 hit U.S. theatres on Friday, September 1rst.