A clock ticks over rain‑slick London. McCall sits in a midnight café, teaspoon still, stopwatch ready. A “charity” pipeline is moving people like freight; when a local kid vanishes, the old ledger opens. Enter Statham as Doyle Cade—ex‑MI5 turned private enforcer with rules and a price. Reeves glides in as “The Archivist,” a monk‑calm broker who erases problems, then the witnesses who saw them.

Set pieces snap: a 12‑second warehouse teardown cut to metronome beats; Jubilee Line carriage fight where the lights strobe and choices narrow; a glass‑skybridge standoff over Canary Wharf; wet‑alley chess with improvised tools (zip ties, watch spring, broken umbrella) ; and a dockside finale as cranes swing like pendulums and a timer bleeds down. The mix is heartbeat and rain; the lens stays still while violence moves—pure Equalizer.