Movie Review: 'Roman J. Israel Esq'

There is just something off about Roman J. Israel Esq. The pieces are all there for a good movie but something intangible is lacking. That is strange considering we are talking about a Denzel Washington movie that is part character piece and part legal thriller. These commercial and artistic elements should work well together, especially considering that Denzel Washington is one of our finest actors, but it just doesn’t come together as I am assuming it was intended.

Roman J. Israel Esq. is a lawyer in Los Angeles who doesn’t try cases. Roman has worked with his friend Carter Johnson (Amari Cheatom) for decades, having come up together as both students and civil rights activists. Their dynamic seemed perfectly suited to Roman; he was the man behind the scenes, the savant who has memorized the legal code, and Carter was the charismatic attorney better able to articulate the law in front of a judge and jury.

Together, Roman and Jackson defended the small timers, the people being rushed through a corrupt system intended to fill privatized prisons by corrupt prosecutors burnishing their win loss records for future private practice opportunities. Roman would be too disgusted and incapable to manage among such people. So, naturally, that is where the story of the movie, written and directed by Dan Gilroy, intends to send poor Roman: into the system he loathes.

When Carter has a heart attack, Roman finds himself first having to go to court, something he is ill-suited for. Then, when the practice is set to be shuttered by Carter’s family following his death, Roman is further unmoored, forced to accept a job with one of Carter’s disciples, George Pierce (Colin Ferrell), a former idealist turned high-end defense attorney as concerned with marketing and bottom lines as he is with the guilt or innocence of his clients.

Clinging to a little of the activist spirit Roman has left, he tries to connect with the modern protest movement through Maya (Carmen Ejogo), a professional activist and organizer. However, when he meets with resistance and outright disrespect from the young activists with little memory of the past, Roman’s idealism becomes warped and he begins down a path wherein what he used to believe in clashes with the indignities of the modern economy and he makes a life changing decision.

The plot is more esoteric than I describe. Roman plays like a person who is somewhere on the aspergers scale and Washington plays him with a lot of tics and quirks. The tics and the quirks overwhelm the character and while Washington is immersed fully in the role, it’s a not a very appealing performance, especially considering that Roman is our lead character. It’s not that Washington is bad in the role, but director Dan Gilroy seems to have indulged his star's whims a little too much in crafting the character of Roman J. Israel Esq.

I realize that this will be the second Denzel Washington review in a row where I have committed the blasphemy of criticizing his choices as an actor; I felt his performance in Fences was far too stage-bound, but I honestly can’t get past the tics and the quirks. Everything is just a little too theatrical, the odd gait, the peanut butter, the inability to look people in the eye; these are all very specific and well played, but they feel at odds to the story being told. Remember when I said that Roman J. Israel Esq. was both a character piece and a legal thriller — the best bet would have been for the film to choose one or the other.

Washington’s tics and tricks as Roman are at odds with the legal thriller at play and it makes the thriller plot seem kind of silly and tossed off. While Washington is acting his backside off trying to establish Roman’s quirky personality, he seems to be missing the fact that the plot was conceived as a thriller and not a character piece. Multiple interviews with Washington seem to indicate the same thing: Gilroy indulging Denzel when he made decisions about Roman’s eating habits, peanut butter sandwiches over a sink, his odd suits, the wild afro haircut.

I understand the actor’s necessity to find the character, but a stronger writer-director than Dan Gilroy would have known what was best for the character and not allowed his actor to take attention away from the plot. Watch Colin Ferrell, for instance, in Roman J. Israel Esq. While Washington is playing around in the margins, Ferrell is delivering the sort of performance the director seemed to be seeking, playing a character who functions as both a believable person and one who is at service to a plot.

Carmen Ejogo, too, seems at a loss to try to keep up with Washington’s oddball performance. Ejogo is somehow supposed to find Roman attractive and that would have been believable were it not for Washington playing Roman as an asexual weirdo who can’t comprehend the modern world, let alone the interests of a modern, beautiful woman. Ejogo’s Maya seems more as if she has a deep well of pity for Roman and not any genuine attraction, and yet she’s supposed to be the love interest.

Washington’s performance throws the whole movie out of wack. Just as his overly theatrical, belt it to the back of the room performance in Fences kept that film from greatness, Washington’s desire for character quirks to play sinks Roman J. Israel Esq. as anything other than another bit of his showboating for his own sake. Don’t misunderstand; at times it’s some pretty fantastic showboating, but like a point guard who won’t pass the ball to his teammates, Washington’s ball hogging holds the whole team back.

It’s hard for me to say these things about Denzel Washington as I am a genuine fan and admirer of his work. Washington is one of our finest actors and if I were to direct him in something I would likely be just like Dan Gilroy, eager to let him do whatever he liked to find the character, even if it didn’t necessarily suit the story. I can understand the instinct to want to just sit back and admire Washington’s talent but a better, stronger filmmaker could have taken a firmer hand with the actor and struck a better balance between his actor’s instinct and the needs of the story.

Without that balance, Roman J. Israel Esq. becomes a messy, showy, and overall faltering mix of character quirkiness and a failing thriller elements.