Dir. Dan Gilroy (2017)
Rated PG-13 Roman J. Israel (Denzel Washington) is a criminal defense attorney and an advocate for human rights. After his partner in his law practice goes into a coma after a heart attack, Israel is thrown for a loop in his life and work. This is when he meets George Pierce (Colin Farrell), a lawyer who is going to take over the practice until all the cases are closed, and then Israel's law office will be closed. Although Pierce offers Roman a job at his own law firm, Roman struggles with what he is going to do next. He desperately needs money, but his own moral conscience pushes him to look for other jobs instead of working at Pierce's law firm. He seeks a job at a local human rights organization, where the woman in charge of the business, Maya (Carmen Ejogo) cannot offer him a job. Israel's character, although incredibly. intelligent and somewhat of a savant when it comes to practicing law, is inept and awkward when talking to others. He says whatever he is thinking without a filter, which often gets him into disagreements. Without a job, he turns back to George Pierce and is hired there. He's not exactly popular and is the odd man out amongst everyone else there, but Pierce gives him work in spite of their reoccurring disagreements. As an activist, Israel often takes on cases where black men are accused of crimes in unfair circumstances that will almost certainly give them lengthy sentences. This is the case when Israel takes on a case to defend a young man charged with a felony because he was an accomplice to a crime where a store owner was murdered. He was not the man who actually shot and killed the clerk, but he discloses the information of the shooter's whereabouts to Israel in an attempt to lessen his own sentence. At the time, Israel didn't know that this would come back up later with an opportunity he would be unable to pass up. Israel found a flyer with the shooter's mugshot, offering a $100,000 reward to whoever turned him in. Though this was highly illegal, since it was a group of Armenian men looking for the shooter and not the cops, and Roman's conscience slipped. Tired of being poor and desperate for more money, he called in and revealed the location of the shooter to the men. Though it was wrong, this decision turned his life around. He took a vacation, bought suits, a new apartment, and paid for it all in cash and hid the money in a backpack in his stove. For a while, Israel's life has changed for the better. He's finally more accepted into his new firm, and has actual money to live off. One day while visiting a new client with Pierce, Israel's decision comes back to haunt him. The new client that they are visiting is the shooter himself, which throws Israel for a huge loop. For a minute, you think that the man doesn't know about Israel and who turns him in. I really thought he was safe for a hot second. Then, the man lets Israel know that he knows exactly who is is and that he'll be watching him. The rest of the movie pretty much goes as expected, Israel is paranoid and basically scrambling for his life, and the ending is not cheery one. Does anyone really know how much plot you should give away when writing a review? I sure as heck do not. Every time I write one of these I really just take a shot into the dark. Whatever. I feel like this was a VERY detailed analysis of the first 3/4s of this movie when that was unnecessary. Anyways, this movie had a mediocre plot with a great leading actor. That being said, I still enjoyed watching it. I think one gets so wrapped up in watching how good Denzel Washington is in this that they don't really pay attention to the boring plot. It's definitely been done before, and by halfway through you can totally tell what's going to happen. But you know what, I was okay with that. It was nice to watch a movie that wasn't laden with hidden metaphors and deep intellectual feeling and then being dubbed as 'art'. This was just an average Joe film, and Washington really killed it. After watching this, before the Oscars, I really wanted him to get the award for best actor. His acting was basically the only thing that made the movie have any kind of spark. Him and the soundtrack. For some reason, I really liked the music in this movie. Aside from that, there's nothing really special about it, and the ending kinda puts you down. You totally see it coming, though. I was so disappointed when Israel decided to give away the shooter's location for the money, because it was probably the only bad and dishonest thing that he had ever done in his life and you just knew that it was going to come back to haunt him forever. From then on, especially after the scene in the jail, you knew he was going to be killed or assaulted by some sort of hit man, even if you really didn't want it to happen. You even kind of sense it coming in the last scene that Israel is alive in. That black car stalking behind him and Pierce as they walked downtown was not that subtle. Even though Pierce tried to stop him at the last minute, you knew that someone was gonna die. So yeah, the ending was a bummer. And then you see Pierce, who has magically been transformed into a decent human after Israel's death, carrying his briefcase in his honor after his death. That part was nice I GUESS, but I feel like there have been dozens of movies like that. So: Denzel Washington is great in this! If you're a fan of his, then this is pretty good. It's not bad by any stretch, but our society has been almost just bombed by intellectual and deep, artsy movies lately and this movie is not that. Don't expect anything special, but there's a good chance you'll still really enjoy it.
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AuthorCasey Land Archives
January 2018
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