In The Equalizer 3, we find our hero, a somewhat longer-in-the-tooth Robert McCall (Denzel Washington), doing more or less (more really) of what he did in the original film, The Equalizer (2014), which, of course, is what he continued to do in The Equalizer 2 (2018) and, what Robert McCall, played by Edward Woodward, did in the titular series from 1985 to 1989. Or, for that matter, what the reimagined character, Robyn McCall (Queen Latifah), does as The Equalizer in the television series reboot from 2021.

All of these McCalls find themselves called upon to protect (and occasionally avenge) the weak and the wronged, which they do with great aplomb while often dispensing bits of “spy-losophy” along the lines of this from The Equalizer 2, “There are two kinds of pain in this world,” says McCall as he tortures someone who has it coming, “the pain that hurts. And the pain that alters.” So far, though, there has only been one kind of Equalizer film; whatever the story’s specifics, they are all the same. Bad guys get hurt in ways that temporarily convince us that there’s justice in the world. The fact that it’s extrajudicial, bloody, and inevitable only makes it more satisfying.

For EQ3, the setting is Sicily, and the bad guys are relatively classic mafia types terrorizing the people of a local community for whom our Mr. McCall has taken a liking. How McCall (whom we first met nearly a decade ago working as a Home Mart clerk who recently retired from one of those alphabet agencies where they license people to kill) comes to be in Italy is part of an effective opening sequence that walks us through the remnants of his handy work, reminding us who he is and what he does, while setting up the film’s wholly unnecessary backstory. There are several familiar characters; the good cop and his lovely family, the discreet old doctor, the local fishmonger, and the sexy cafe owner, all threatened by the local swarthy gangster and his out-of-control little brother.

Antoine Fuqua leaves the door open for another Equalizer, if Denzel Washington is downDakota Fanning to equalize with Denzel Washington in Equalizer

There is nothing new here narratively, save the setting (shot with picturesque beauty by Oscar-winning cinematographer Robert Richardson), the names of the characters, and the details of the offense for which the evil doers will have to pay. In the first film, the gangsters were Russian; in the second, they were mercenaries with whom McCall once worked; in this film it’s the Mafia.

While hardly the most creative collection of future corpses, they’re easy to hate, they’re evil and they threatened someone or something McCall cares about and, therefore, must die in ways that are as horrible as they are cathartic for the audience.