The Big Picture
David Harbour’s role in the film
The Equalizer
was that of Frank Masters, a crooked Boston PD Detective with ties to the syndicate. He expertly portrayed Masters as a fallible secondary antagonist with a hint of sympathy and underlying remorse.
Harbour’s scenes with Denzel Washington, who played the main character Robert McCall, were suspenseful and intense.
Harbour’s final moment in the film with Washington was a powerful and existential interaction, showcasing his ability to add truth and emotion to every scene. His portrayal of Masters added depth and complexity to the film.
When he isn’t doing his darnedest thwarting supernatural threats and generally ensuring the safety of the people of Hawkins, Indiana as the behatted legend that is Police Chief Jim Hopper, David Harbour is consistently captivating movie audiences. While now best known for Hopper, Harbour had long been a reliable and steady character actor in films. From the stormy melodrama of Sam Mendes’ Revolutionary Road to the visceral police thriller End of Watch — the actor has proven his chops time and time again as stand out in the projects he takes part in.
But before becoming Hopper and starring in movies like Gran Turismo, one of his most intriguing parts was in Antoine Fuqua’s The Equalizer, which featured Denzel Washington playing the lethal but reluctant vigilante Robert McCall for the first time. While the fate of Harbour’s character was all but sealed in the 2014 thriller — meaning he wasn’t back for the sequels, Harbour managed to infuse every one of his scenes with flair and sincerity as a shady villain.
The Equalizer
A man who believes he has put his mysterious past behind him cannot stand idly by when he meets a young girl under the control of ultra-violent Russian gangsters.
Release Date September 24, 2014
Runtime 131
What Is David Harbour’s Role in the Plot of ‘The Equalizer’?
The film opens by introducing the audience to Robert McCall and takes its time before introducing the viewer to the chief villain and his accomplices. McCall is a former DIA officer and U.S. Marine, but when we first meet him, he is living a peaceful, but placid life. Frequenting the same diner at the same time each night and ordering the same dish — he is a figure of extreme precision and detail. He is also dangerously observant, and bristles at any suggestion of hostility, injustice or untoward behavior towards another. In that very diner, he first meets Chloë Grace Moretz’s Teri, a sex worker completely under the control of the Russian mafia, and the two bond over literature — in one instance, McCall name-drops Hemingway as the two converse. It’s a heartfelt opener to a film that will eventually explode in a cavalcade of stylishly choreographed action sequences. However, Fuqua ensures that there is humanity at the heart of the tale, meaning the foundation is always one of genuine human emotion. At this stage, McCall works at a hardware store and regularly encourages his co-workers in what amounts to being a kind of unofficial life coach. The connectedness Washington maintains all throughout is why the part works for him, there’s always a groundedness.
When McCall first catches a whiff of the brutal circles Teri is a part of, his old instincts are reignited, and he launches a (virtually) one-man crusade to exercise justice. David Meunier’s Slavi is only a small part of the problem. Martin Csokas’ Rensen is the greater risk and the bigger influence. Merciless and vicious, and at first unperturbed by the uncommonly dogged pursuit of McCall, his sole objective is to maintain as much order as possible, using whatever means necessary to achieve it. Enter Harbour’s Frank Masters — a crooked Boston PD Detective who first appears at a syndicate get-together in a luxurious setting.
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It’s not initially obvious at first that Masters is a cop, and this mysterious first appearance keeps one guessing as to what precise role he plays in the whole maelstrom of things. Is he entrenched in the sinister plot or a mere day player doing odd jobs for the criminals on the side? Clearly familiar with Rensen and the other associates seated around the lavish table, Masters is a smooth-talker and shrewd operator who ostensibly has no qualms living something of a double life so long as he remains the beneficiary of some discreetly handed down coin. Only contributing to the discussion here and there, he flashes some authority towards the end of the scene subtly, and it’s as if he’s become something of a master in leading people on.
David Harbour’s Scenes With Denzel Washington Shine
Harbour’s Masters gets more embroiled with the nefarious goings-on as the film hurtles towards its climax but at the end of the day, he is a hired hand, on the payroll, and in it for himself. As McCall gains momentum, turning his attention to the swathe of wrongdoers he encounters while making a beeline for Rensen in an eventual showdown in the very hardware store where he has innocently worked. Before that, Masters asserts himself in several scenes but seems to have an underlying sympathy at his core that belies some of his behavior. He’s in it for the personal gain, nothing more. What renders Masters interesting is the way Harbour portrays him as a fallible secondary antagonist. In The Equalizer 2, Pedro Pascal also serves as an excellent screen partner and foil for Washington, in a more prominent role. In this film, Masters isn’t without reason or reservation, and it shines through in the scene when he is forced to accompany one of Rensen’s toughs to bump off a threat. While he is powerful, there are traces of thinly disguised remorse.
In one of the most suspenseful moments in the flick, Masters, awakened in his Boston residence, heads downstairs brandishing a revolver, to investigate a commotion. He is promptly snared by a waiting McCall and placed in a (literally) suffocating trap in the garage, forced to cough and sputter his way into spilling the beans in order to save himself, Exposed as someone with ties to Rensen, his protestations fail to trouble the determined McCall, who simply wants to topple the ring as swiftly as possible.
Harbour hits the right mix of resignation, desperation and fear as he realizes helping McCall will put himself in danger with those he works with on both sides of the law, and his final moment in the film with Washington culminates in a fairly existential moment as he is forced to ‘call it in’. The inner conflict stewing inside serves as the ultimate platform for the exasperation and angered pleas that spill out as Masters’ final ambiguous interaction with McCall ends. Harbour continues to build a strong filmography, and his proficiency at adding truth to every scene is evidenced again in Fuqua’s first Equalizer flick.
The Equalizer is now streaming on Peacock in the U.S.
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