Roman J Israel, Esq

A misfit lawyer is caught in the grip of a personal crisis in this character-driven drama. With his unruly afro hair and ill-fitting suits, Denzel Washington plays the eponymous back-room brief as a frump whose genius-level legal insights suggest someone on the Asperger spectrum. The Civil Rights-era values his character extols are utterly authentic, but have also left him marooned in the modern world of high-priced legal advice. Faced with the closure of the pro bono firm he's served for years, he joins attorney Colin Farrell's slick downtown operation, which seriously unbalances his moral compass. Nightcrawler writer/director Dan Gilroy stumbles a bit himself as he attempts to work this memorable central character into an effective modern fable, but the film is worth watching for Washington's remarkable transformation alone.