Roman J. Israel Esq. has Denzel Washington playing a lawyer whose life is thrown upside down when his partner at his law firm is forced out of practicing law due to poor health. Israel has been the partner happily working in the background for decades while his partner was been the face of the firm. The two are bonded by a firm belief in fighting for civil rights, even though there's never been much money in it. Israel is happy to stay out of the spotlight, because he's one of those socially awkward types you see a lot in movies and TV these days who is probably somewhere on the autism spectrum although they never say it. Without his partner, Israel's law firm has to close down. He is briefly unemployed and finds out that he's out of touch with today's social activism - his mindset is about 40 years out of date. He then gets hired on at a big law firm by an old student of his former partner, played by Collin Farrell. This taste of the good life throws Israel's moral compass out of whack, and he has to decide how much he's willing to compromise himself and his ethics.
It's obvious why Washington would want to play this character. It has all the actor-y things that often lead to Oscar nominations. It's a very mannered performance. Washington gets a lot of character ticks from the way he constantly adjusts his glasses to his deliberate walk. He successfully drops the charisma that he's possibly best known for. He has a big moral arc and even a makeover. It was all a bit much though. Lately, the big question I've been asking with a lot of movies is if I can believe this character existed in the world of the movie before the movie started (i.e. in the world of the movie, is it possible for this character to have existed for his entire life before the movie began?). I'm not convinced that Roman J. Israel Esq. got to his 60s before being tempted like this, because it doesn't take all that much to sway him. The script works very hard to show how he's been shielded by the less savory aspects of the real world all this time, and I didn't buy it.
This is director Dan Gilroy's second movie and it almost feels like he's attempting to create a moral counter to his first film, Nightcrawler, a film I adored. That movie is about an immoral person succeeding because he knows how to play dirty. Despite getting a kind of hero's end, Roman J. Israel Esq. has more of a "stay in your lane" message. If you are a good person, you should never do anything bad, because you don't know how to get away with it and karmic retribution will be swift and severe. With Nightcrawler, it was pretty clear that the movie wasn't on Jake Gyllenhaal's side even though he did come out ahead in the end. I'm not as sure what the moral message of Roman J. Israel Esq. is. It's a little over the top in its response to any choice that's made, good or bad. If it wants to make a martyr out of Israel. I didn't buy that either.
I think what it ultimately comes down to is that Roman J. Israel Esq. is a character study of a character I didn't care about enough. Too much happens in too short a time. The rises and falls are too server. The script works too hard to create the different circumstances and a few key practical beats are skipped over entirely. Denzel Washington still makes the character work more than it should, but he falls victim to over-emphasizing the quirks. This film feels like a direct response to what Dan Gilroy did in Nightcrawler. I'm not sure if they are meant to be two sides of the same coin or a direct counter to each other. Either way, it didn't really work.
Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend
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