Roman J. Israel, Esq. ** ½ / *****
Directed by: Dan Gilroy.
Written by: Dan Gilroy.
Starring: Denzel Washington (Roman J. Israel, Esq.), Colin Farrell (George Pierce), Carmen Ejogo (Maya Alston), Lynda Gravatt (Vernita Wells), Amanda Warren (Lynn Jackson), Hugo Armstrong (Fritz Molinar), Sam Gilroy (Connor Novick), Tony Plana (Jessie Salinas), DeRon Horton (Derrell Ellerbee), Amari Cheatom (Carter Johnson).
The first thing I noticed about Denzel Washington is Roman J. Israel, Esq. is that the character does not have Washington’s trademark strut. Washington has one of the best struts in cinema history – he moves through the space with utter and complete confidence – he’s in control and he knows it (or at least that’s the impression he wants to give). But his Roman here doesn’t strut as much as shuffle. Unlike almost any other Washington character, he doesn’t walk with his head held high – instead, he mainly looks down, his old fashioned Walkman headphones on as protection from the outside world. Here’s he is playing a lawyer who has essentially got to hide from the outside world – live inside his head – for decades. He is partnered with another lawyer – but that other lawyer is the fact of the operation, does all the court appearances, meets clients, etc. Israel has a genius legal mind, but no social skills, so he stays in the office writing briefs – doing the grunt work – while his partner does the rest. It works for Roman – that is, until his partner has a heart attack, slips into a coma and dies. With nowhere else to go, nothing else to do, and in desperate need of money – he ends up working for George Pierce (Colin Farrell) – a slick, criminal defense lawyer who thinks he can use Israel’s genius mind to help his own, already thriving practice. But in a matter of weeks, Israel will essentially destroy himself.
What precisely is wrong with Roman is never really discussed in the film. He’s clearly somewhere on the autism spectrum – but if he’s ever been diagnosed, it doesn’t come up. He is, in many ways, a genius – but thrust out into the world without protection, he makes one bad decision after another.
Washington is in nearly every scene of the film, and luckily for the film, you cannot take your eyes off of him. I’m not sure it’s a good performance or not, but it’s an interesting one. Everything around him in the movie is a complete and total mess – none of the other characters make a whole lot of sense, the plotting makes less sense, and nothing in the film really coheres into a whole. I’m not quite sure what the film is trying to say about, well, anything.
The film was written and directed by Dan Gilroy – whose directorial debut Nightcrawler with Jake Gyllenhaal is a truly great neo-noir, with terrific performances, and a killer look. It was one of the great debuts of recent years. Here, though, I never got the sense of what Gilroy wants to do or say in the movie. He clearly doesn’t like the criminal justice system, which has turned into one in which everyone pleas out, without going to court, because the consequences of not doing so are so dire.
But of all that gets lost in a plot that involves a murder, and reward money, and Israel deciding to sell out, that regretting it – and a subplot involving Carmen Ejogo’s character – who works for some ill-defined Civil Rights group whose mission is never stated, who is drawn to Israel, for reasons that don’t make a lot of sense. Farrell’s character is worse. He has turned into a terrific actor over the last few years, but there is little you can do with a character who seems to be different – and have different motivations – every time we see him. The fact that this all takes place over the span of a mere three weeks makes no sense either – there’s simply too much going on.
Washington is as committed as ever to his role – and it’s a strange choice for him to play, and I admire him for doing it. Like the movie itself, I don’t think the performance entirely works – and yet I don’t see how it could have gone any better. Roman J. Israel, Esq. is a disappointment because it is the type of movie I wish Hollywood made more of – and because this one doesn’t work, that’s further proof for them to stop trying to do movies like this at all. It shouldn’t be. This is an odd film – and not a very good one. But I don’t think I’m going to forget it any time soon.
