Roman J. Israel, Esq. (2017)

[baumer]

Discuss

[filmlover]

Talk about a movie with a serious case of identity crisis. It's like they couldn't decide what movie they wanted to make so they made all of them and hoped it would come together eventually. This makes Justice League somehow look like a coherent movie in comparison. Denzel Washington gives it his all as always, but he alone can't overcome such a scattershot screenplay. A crushingly disappointing sophomore effort from Dan Gilroy after the terrific Nightcrawler. C-

[Webslinger]

There is no question that Roman J. Israel, Esq. – Dan Gilroy’s first film since his fascinating 2014 breakthrough Nightcrawler – is an ambitious film with many worthy issues on its mind. The film’s greatest stumbling block, however, is that it tries to juggle too many of these issues in a crowded narrative that jumps from one plot thread to another without devoting proper time to explore each strand’s implications. All at once, it tries to be a study in how a presumably high-functioning autistic adult navigates the world, two different sermonizing morality tales – one about reforming the justice system, and another about how easy corruption can be – and an awkward May-December romance. Amid all these competing elements, it also never settles on a consistent tone; some scenes are clearly intended to be idealistic and uplifting, while others have an unmistakable undercurrent of cynicism. Had Gilroy stuck to making a more focused film with a clearer tone and half of the plot threads, it could have been much stronger. But for all the problems the film faces on a storytelling level, it gets a major boost from Denzel Washington’s performance as the title character. Washington conveys Roman’s eccentricities without overacting or turning him into a caricature; it’s a mannered, nuanced, and at times affecting performance. Sadly, this performance goes toward a film that never really finds its footing because it bites off far more than it can chew. 

 

C

 

Stray Thoughts:

- Why was it PG-13? I was handily the youngest patron at my screening, and both the star and the subject matter have far more appeal to adults than they would to teenagers. It feels disingenuous to hear characters utter "hell" when everything in their delivery suggests that they should be saying a different word.

 

- Colin Farrell is usually a really strong actor, but his performance here is a rare miss that reflects the film's bigger tone problems. He's introduced as the smarmy, uncaring antithesis to Roman's idealism and spends most of his screen time expressing exasperation with Roman's methods, but occasionally gets scenes in which he is sincere with Roman. Their relationship is so inconsistent that I didn't really buy that he would file Roman's court reform briefing at the end of the film. Perhaps some of his gradual change of heart was part of what was excised from the Toronto cut?

Edited December 6, 2017 by Webslinger

[DeeCee]

This a scattershot mess and I still have 50 minutes to sit through