Roman J Israel, Esq *** (2017, Denzel Washington, Colin Farrell, Carmen Ejogo) – Movie Review 

Oscar nominated Denzel Washington gives a slightly fussy, rather florid performance as autistic savant idealistic defense attorney Roman J Israel, Esq in writer-director Dan Gilroy’s low-key, slow-moving personal existential crisis drama. Roman has Asperger syndrome, a developmental disorder characterised by impaired social skills, repetitive behaviours and a narrow set of interests. Yes, that is Roman alright.

Washington evidently relishes the role, getting well into it. I use ‘florid’ in its meaning of excessively ornate and showy. It is ideal Oscar nomination material. Look what this kind of role did for Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump and Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man.

Washington relies heavily on the props of his glasses, outmoded clothes and hairstyle, saggy stomach and gappy teeth to give his star character acting turn (he seems to be living in the Seventies), but he gets into the vocal and physical performance lustily too.

Unfortunately, the series of events Roman J Israel, Esq gets caught up in after his law firm partner has a heart attack and he is forced to take on the role of the firm’s frontman are more on the dull and unsurprising side rather than being exciting or riveting. The film runs for over two hours and feels it, and it needs a big finish and doesn’t really get one. Israel is a backroom boy and a loner, and this isn’t too promising for drama.

Colin Farrell is oddly cast as George Pierce, a slick hot-shot lawyer who suddenly enters his life, recruiting Roman to his firm, and Pierce’s relationship with Roman J Israel remains mysterious, as is Israel’s relationship with the one other main character, idealistic Maya Alston (Carmen Ejogo), who has also suddenly entered his life as the charming, attractive young woman running the LA progressive advice centre where Roman seeks work.

Farrell is rather good though, showing his range and versatility, as well as still growing skill as an actor in a role so mercurial you can’t really comprehend it, so acting it must have been tricky. Ejogo is quite good too, but her role is a bit soft and weak.

There are lots of ideas tossed around in Gilroy’s talk-heavy script, but it is hard to say what the film is actually about. Oh, it’s about being a better person, doing the right thing, being polite. Oh really?

Even so, it feels like you are being lectured to, but perhaps by someone clever but too unfocused to be able to make a really great job of it. The script has characters spouting nonsense as though it was wit and wisdom – ‘Each of us is better than the worst thing we ever did’ – it is all very off-putting. Farrell even talks about ‘drowning in the shallow end’ – and that really is the end. And Roman’s dreamy, poetic day trip to the doughnut stand and ocean really is pushing it.

Somewhere here there might be a really good film, but frustratingly Gilroy hasn’t got in touch with that, except in short bursts, and it remains a frustrating and unsatisfying experience, though, to be fair, an interesting one.

It was released ages ago in America – 22 November 2017 – to a small $11,942,780 box office gross (on a $22,000,000 budget). Its belated and half-hearted UK release can only be explained by the star’s unexpected Oscar nomination.

The distributors advertise it as ‘a dramatic thriller set in the underbelly of the overburdened Los Angeles criminal court system’. That sounds great, doesn’t it? It sounds like it’s going to be a John Grisham-style legal thriller. With that in mind, I looked forward to seeing it. But that advertising is entirely misleading. I’d like to see Washington in a John Grisham-style legal thriller, but this isn’t it.

I should have been warned by the fact that this film comes from the director of Nightcrawler. But that would have made me only even keener to see it. However, this film is nowhere in the class of Nightcrawler or of a good Grisham movie, like The Rainmaker or Runaway Jury.

Washington is getting on now – he’s 64 this year – and casting him gets more difficult, especially as he has done so many films in so many years – around 50 in 40 years. What should he be doing? Yes, a John Grisham-style legal thriller, and no, not another sequel to the The Equalizer.

For all its faults, Roman J Israel, Esq is a much better movie to have around than The Equalizer. Perhaps it is all about being a better person, doing the right thing and being polite after all. Hollywood movies with moral values are rare enough.

© Derek Winnert Movie Review 

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