Robert McCall

McCall is a former Marine and former DIA officer who lives in Boston, works at a home-improvement store and reads through the night. At the diner he befriends Alina, a young woman exploited by the Russian mob. When she ends up in the hospital, he tries to buy her freedom, is refused and kills the entire crew. The boss, Pushkin, sends Teddy after him, and McCall answers by tearing down the enemy's operations. At the store he turns tools against the henchmen. After that, he starts answering requests for help as The Equalizer.

McCall now drives a rideshare and helps passengers, neighbors and an elderly man looking for a family painting. He takes a gifted teenager, Miles, under his wing and invites him to paint a mural. When Susan is killed in Brussels, McCall finds that his former partner Dave York is behind the crime. He vows to eliminate Dave's team and draws them to his hometown, in the middle of a hurricane. Flour traps, a harpoon and knives end the hunt. Afterward he reunites the elderly man with his sister.

In Sicily, McCall kills a gangster to recover money stolen in a cyber-heist and is shot in the back. Gio, a carabinieri marshal, rescues him and brings him to Altamonte, where the local doctor treats him. He grows fond of the village, tries to protect its people from the Camorra and, when the Quaranta brothers threaten them all, kills Marco and then the other brother, Vincent. The CIA, through officer Emma Collins, receives the evidence of the scheme. He gives the money back to an elderly couple who were defrauded.

The Equalizer started as the 1985 TV series, in which Edward Woodward played McCall. The Denzel Washington films reuse the name and the idea of a former agent helping people with nowhere to turn, but tell a new story.