After the success of Nightcrawler, Dan Gilroy is back on the director's chair, with Denzel Washington-led Roman J. Israel, Esq.
The film opened with a captivating legal case petition document typewritten as a way of giving a head start and alert on an event that has happened before, which we're about to witness. Moving on, we're acquainted with the titular character, who was a rebellious, vastly knowledgeable and persistent criminal defense lawyer. He's an ultimate upholder of truth and justice. What if a man as such breaks the law himself? That's the character-driven story dilemma we're dealing with here.
Going into a Denzel Washington picture, great performance is guaranteed. But, to say so would mean taking his absolute work for granted, because his performance was so fine, flamboyant, flawless, in short, exceptional! From every little nuances and touches he bring into playing the part, be it the way he speaks, walks, hunches, stammers or shies away, you can clearly tell the thespian was enjoying his job! It's sad to see him performing Roman tearing up finding for a position at this age, after working for someone for 36 years.
The story gradually pushed him into falling on the other side of action. Due to his weak interpersonal skills, he got into troubles and unable to solve cases. Whenever he's out to do the right thing by speaking up his mind and heart, he's rejected, insulted or simply, encountered failures. Being in this situation for half of the runtime, he decided to let it go and jumped over the fence for self-pleasure.
Primary issue with the film is, it's hard to dive in the story from the beginning. The writing was dense, with full technical mumbo jumbos for most of the first half. It's appreciative that the writer-director has dedicated enough time to explore this character through step-by-step changes, but it quickly became directionless for the storyline. Certain situations merely to reveal character but did little to nothing in moving the story forward could have been easily omitted, such as the staircase robbery or spotting a presumed dead man on the walkway, although the latter was hilarious! Odd background music for nonevents made us wonder why. Speaking of score, the repetition of 'Time' hymn during the alleged chase on deserted road was thrilling!
But yes, the moment he claimed the reward money out at the dumpster in a nail-biting scene, the plot surged forward. He began experiencing life and looking after of himself. He started receiving new opportunities and future seemed bright. However, he's haunted by the shadow of guilt, waiting to engulf him when the time comes. Right at the last 30th minute mark, when he learnt the guy he exposed was caught in cell instead, that's when the film geared up! But it's too late, the show's about to end already. Danger's expected to strike from any corner! And it sure did in the climax! Finally, we come to know what's the context of the filing letter shown at the kick-off.