Three stars. Rated PG-13, for profanity and violence
By Derrick Bang
Denzel Washington’s work here is
sublime: absolutely one of the finest — if not the finest — roles of his already impressive career.
It’s a shame writer/director Dan
Gilroy’s film isn’t worthy of such talent.
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| In his own mind, Roman J. Israel (Denzel Washington) is one of the finest legal minds ever to stride Los Angeles' mean, inner-city streets. And he's right ... but he's also inherently unable to wield such talent. |
Gilroy’s résumé is dominated by
action-oriented popcorn flicks such as Real Steel, The Bourne Legacy and Kong: Skull Island. Nothing indicates he
has the sensibilities for a quiet, deeply intimate drama of this nature ...
and, in fact, he doesn’t. Worse yet, his story gets its momentum from a plot
contrivance that is blindingly unbelievable: an event we simply cannot accept when
it happens, and which taints everything that follows.
Washington, brilliant as he is,
cannot overcome such a narrative blunder.
He stars as the title character,
a lawyer and legal scholar with a savant’s gift for tireless research and
perfect recall: the “unseen half” of a two-man firm headed by celebrated civil
rights attorney William Henry Jackson. The latter is the front man, who for
nearly four decades has garnered all the fame for meticulously precise
courtroom arguments that Roman prepared behind the scenes.
This has been sufficient for
Roman, who has greatly valued the voice that Jackson has given to their shared
passion for defending the disenfranchised.
We never meet Jackson; the film
begins as he suffers a fatal heart attack one morning, off camera, leaving
Roman with the necessity of handling the day’s case load. Just show up and
request continuances, instructs the firm’s devoted secretary, Vernita (Lynda
Gravátt). Don’t do — or say — anything else.
This seems an odd request,
although not for viewers who’ve been paying attention. Roman’s attire is
decades out of date, his manner of walking awkward and ungainly, his head
bobbing slightly like a nervous bird. He’s never without the massive, battered
briefcase that bulges with his most prized accomplishment: the career-long
construction of a class action lawsuit with the potential to establish federal
precedent ... if only somebody will co-author and file it for him.
He uses far too many words to
answer simple questions, his attention forever wandering, his gaze — in the
presence of other people — oddly unfocused.
I find it intriguing that this
film’s press notes avoid the use of the terms autistic or spectrum,
because there’s absolutely no doubt that Roman is such an individual. He has no
filter and is blunt — and truthful — to the point of cruelty: self-righteously
idealistic to a degree that prevents compromise on any level. Small wonder Jackson carefully kept him in a back
office.
