THE EQUALIZER *** (15, 132 mins) Starring Denzel Washington, Marton Csokas, Chloe Grace Moretz, David Harbour, Haley Bennett, Bill Pullman, Melissa Leo, David Meunier, Johnny Skourtis

DIRECTOR Antoine Fuqua, who guided Denzel Washington to the Oscar podium in Training Day, re-unites with the charismatic actor for this gratuitously violent re-imagining of a beloved 1980s TV series.

Nostalgic memories of Edward Woodward’s refined approach to justice and crime-fighting on the small screen are blown to smithereens by this big-screen rendering of The Equalizer.

Each bone-cracking blow is captured in balletic close-up; a queasy dance of death that reaches a hilarious and frenetic crescendo with drills and sledgehammers in a warehouse where the title character works when he’s not coolly doling out just desserts.

Screenwriter Richard Wenk, who co-wrote The Expendables 2 with Sylvester Stallone, comes perilously close to the tongue-in-cheek tone of that film when Washington is asked by a work colleague how he hurt his bandaged hand and he drolly responds, “I hit it on something stupid”.

We presume he means the script, considering the implausibilities of the final act, steeped in mindless and repetitive bloodletting.

Robert McCall (Washington) has turned his back on his covert government past and has fashioned an unremarkable life in suburbia.

By day, he earns a wage in a Home Mart warehouse and mentors another employee, Ralphie (Johnny Skourtis), through his security guard’s exam.

By night, McCall works his way through 100 books everyone should read while enjoying a coffee at his local diner, where he befriends a sassy prostitute called Teri (Chloe Grace Moretz).

When she ends up in hospital, battered and bruised at the hands of her controlling Russian pimp Slavi (David Meunier), McCall exacts revenge.

Unfortunately, Slavi and his goons are a link in a bigger chain controlled by the Russian Mafia and they dispatch sadistic fixer Teddy (Marton Csokas) to track down McCall.

The Equalizer starts off promisingly, exploring the minutiae of McCall’s daily life as a man tormented by his past.

Washington is in his element in these early scenes, capturing the maelstrom of emotions that simmer beneath his character’s placid surface.

Once the first drop of blood is spilled, director Fuqua seizes every opportunity for carnage, to the point that it seems like nothing short of a nuclear explosion will stop McCall.

Csokas has little depth beyond his propensity for pain, which is something we experience as the running time drags unnecessarily into a third hour.