Writer/director Dan Gilroy would be cruel if he weren’t so calculating. Roman J. Israel, Esq. spends the majority of his own film flailing, the walls closing in tighter every time he opens his mouth. He’s so passionate about civil rights that he insults the volunteers as a civil rights non-profit organization. He’s so eager to fight for what’s right that, when he finally does get a job at a successful law firm, he can’t resist the impulse to call his new boss a cockroach.
Nobody cares, and if they do, they’re too wrapped up in their selfish motives to help a man who spent his whole life dedicated to doing everything the right way, not the profitable way or the easy way. Gilroy spends so much time convincing Roman J. Israel, Esq. to abandon his moral center, and Washington gives such a sympathetic and indignant performance, that we can’t entirely blame him when the time finally comes for Roman to make the worst decision of his life.It would have been easy for Roman J. Israel Esq., the movie, to transform into a pat legal thriller by the time all the danger seeps in. And to be fair, Dan Gilroy seems to have made his judgment about Roman, who doesn’t seem to notice that his stalwart principles have had a transformative impact on every single person around him. His patience might even have been rewarded, but patience doesn’t pay bills, and the sudden influx of comfort into an impossibly stressful existence can be a very addictive narcotic. But even that just gives Roman J. Israel, Esq. another devastating layer of tragic irony.
In both this film and his directorial debut, Nightcrawler, Dan Gilroy seems keenly focused on the question of whether it is possible to be both moral and financially successful. Nightcrawler was a deeply cynical look at a system that rewarded wickedness, but Roman J. Israel, Esq. is more nuanced in its approach to that big question. There are many paths to take, some more ethical than others, but each potential path has one thing in common. You. So you’d better be prepared to live with your choices, whatever they are.
Denzel Washington gives a truly remarkable performance in, and as, Roman J. Israel, Esq. He seems to revel in playing a character who is wholly aware of his own internal crisis, intelligent enough to know what he wants but naive enough to have no idea how to get it. He’s a brilliant character who makes foolish mistakes, and we come to respect him so much that his downfall feels almost physically painful.
