OVP: Roman J. Israel, Esq.

Film: Roman J. Israel, Esq. (2017)
Stars: Denzel Washington, Colin Farrell, Carmen Ejogo, Amari Cheatom
Director: Dan Gilroy
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Actor-Denzel Washington)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars (But this is a way more interesting failure than this rating gives it credit for, all things considered, and certainly not the staid, inspirational legal drama I was imagining)

The short history of Roman J. Israel, Esq. seems to be a fascinating one.  As a general rule when I go to a movie, I try to know as little about it as possible.  Once I make the plunge into "this is a movie I will be seeing," the actual film itself I like to make elusive.  It's why I know very little about, say, the plot of even the next Star Wars movie, as you only get to experience a film for the first time once, and why not make that as special and unique as possible?  But it's rare that I head into a movie like Roman J. Israel, Esq., which I know virtually nothing about other than Denzel Washington appeared to be playing a goofy-looking lawyer.  I realized after the film when I watched the trailer that despite starring one of the most identifiable movie stars of the past thirty years, I'd never seen this advertised anywhere-not in a theater, not on TV-nowhere.  And this isn't for lack of trying, as I see movies on a near constant basis, particularly this time of year.  The film, despite its success in getting Washington nominated at the Globes and SAG Awards, has been a major box office dud, a rarity for Denzel, which may have had to do with poor advertising & marketing (and the ridiculous decision to open the film in limited release, when Washington has the star power to open pretty much any movie he wants nationally).  But after watching the movie, I will say that it's far more interesting than it seems on the surface (or even, if you have seen the trailer, from what the trailer lets on), even if I'm not sure it's a good movie, something I never would have expected before walking into the theater on Wednesday night (my most optimistic view was that it was going to be a good movie that's not very interesting).

(Spoilers Ahead) Washington stars as a socially awkward savant lawyer named Roman J. Israel, a man who works as the behind-the-scenes brains of a two-man law firm where suddenly, one day, his partner has a heart attack and slips into a coma.  We learn relatively quickly that due to the partner's overwhelming philanthropic spirit, the firm has been operating at a loss for years, and the partner's niece has hired a former law student of the partner's to take over all active cases, with the intention of quickly shutting down the law firm.  The new attorney, George (Farrell), sees potential in Roman, despite the latter's intense sense of right and confidence in his own ability to always be right.  Quickly Roman starts to apply his own, unbendable social ideas with that of a successful corporate law firm, usually to intense failure, but still provides an obvious value to the lawyers around him.  All-the-while he has met an attractive activist Maya (Ejogo) who sees him as someone who has been fighting for right for decades, and as something of a hero/love interest (their relationship is never entirely defined, but you get the sense both are teetering toward romance).

If that's where it were to end, I think this movie would have been a hit.  Intensely boring and played out, but a hit.  But Gilroy is an interesting filmmaker, and the man who created Nightcrawler is not going to just stick to a script that would have been at home with Henry Fonda at the lead in 1958.  Instead, he leans in and has Roman start to not only question his rigid morality, but abandon it fully in the light of an incredible opportunity, where a client dies having given Roman access to information work $100k.  Roman uses that privileged information to take back the reward money, and in the process we see someone make a Faustian bargain, someone whom you would least suspect, but who in a world where he is completely lost (you have the idea that his original partner was his entire life & he has almost no close friends), is reliant on his own, poor, decision-making process for the first time and makes truly heinous mistakes.  Washington plays Roman as a man who is probably mentally ill, not just socially awkward as the movie progresses.  His dealing with absolutes when it comes to everything that he encounters is shocking, and shows that his decades of loneliness and abandoning prospects of a family or social life in favor of work has clearly resulted in a depression of sorts, perhaps to the point where he's only capable of mimicking the actions of authority figures around him.  Toward the end of the film he starts dressing and acting like his boss, George, but cannot handle it because he doesn't know what lines George won't cross, which only spurs him into further recklessness.  That juxtaposition of Washington, a movie actor who rarely works with ambiguous characters, with a man whose inner-motives are impossible to decipher, is fascinating to watch.

I just wish it were more successful.  I oftentimes say that an interesting movie is better than a good one, and this isn't really a good movie, even if that was my initial impression.  It's too sloppy with its plot details.  It's fine that I leave the movie with a mixed opinion of Roman as a character, but Dan Gilroy occasionally doesn't seem to have one, and the ending is a joke (with Roman suddenly becoming a saint again despite his road to hell narrative).  Perhaps Gilroy, after Nightcrawler, wanted a character with a more concrete ending to his story, but in having Roman get a complete 180-degree turn back toward good, he abandons the idea that he enjoyed his rush of cash and luxury.  This forfeits the interesting middle and the complicated work Washington is creating at the center of one of his more interesting creations in recent years.  Overall, then, while I can't give it a recommendation, if you like movies with grey characters and ideas, this is probably worth your time.