Roman J. Israel, Esq.

[Saul Goodman]

An unenthusiastic meh from me on this.

Roman J. Israel, Esq. is a middle-aged attorney whose wardrobe never left the 1970s and who works at a two-man criminal defense firm. One day he learns that his law partner is in a coma. The law partner is the face of the firm: he makes all court appearances and is locally famous in Los Angeles as a champion of defendants’ rights. Roman, however, practices criminal law by necessity. His real passion is civil rights activist litigation. He has worked in the shadows for decades writing briefs and researching while his partner gets the glory.

The film follows Roman as he comes to learn something about his partner that causes Roman to question his decades of selfless public service. “I’m tired of doing the impossible for the ungrateful,” he laments at one point. Roman finds himself confronted with his new boss, a high-powered managing partner, whose interest lies in money and charging ever-higher fees, and we see the conflict with Roman’s own selfless values as he starts to give in to the powerful forces of one’s own pecuniary interest. Roman goes on a journey of self-doubt, self-indulgence, and, eventually, potential redemption and revitalization. It’s the way we get there, though, that makes this film hard to like.

Roman is quirky for no apparent reason. He appears to be somewhere on the spectrum, which according to the director (I attended a screening and Q-and-A) was done for no reason except the character needed to have an excellent legal memory. I spent most of the film thinking I was watching a man’s descent into total madness, but apparently that wasn’t the goal. The pacing is slow for most of the running time and Denzel Washington does his best, playing against type, to make it interesting but I thought the film fell flat.

This film is trying really hard to be Deep and Meaningful and Inspiring and Challenging but it just ends up looking like other, more successful movies that were all those things. It’s hard to put my finger on it, exactly, but I just couldn’t get into the story and left feeling more confused than satisfied. The closest I can come to explaining my reaction is to say that the message of Roman J. Israel, Esq. is too muddled to figure out what the message is, exactly: is this a commentary on people suffering from developmental disabilities? Is this a commentary on victims of mental illness? Is this a commentary on antisocial outcasts? Is this a commentary on legal ethics? Is this a commentary on the criminal justice system? Is this a commentary on greed? Is this a commentary on what it means to be an activist in today’s political climate? It seems, on some level, to want to be all of these things, but it realized that would be too much work so it just hit a couple bullet points instead.

The ridiculous, unbelievable romance between a middle-aged Roman and a burned-out younger activist doesn’t help.

Why Roman J. Israel? According to the director, he wanted the idea of conflict in the character’s name, and he couldn’t think of two things more in conflict in history than the Roman Empire and Israel. Okay then.

By the way, this film was highly anticipated in certain circles as the sophomore effort from the director of Nightcrawler. This film shares its fascination with Los Angeles, but most are going to see this as a disappointing step back.

[Quality Start Machine]

bewbs?

[Saul Goodman]

bewbs?

None that I remember.