Roman J. Israel, Esq.

SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

Roman J. Israel, Esq. (2017) is not just about a stereotypical crusading attorney trying to do good, although his name suggests the establishment of laws in ancient Rome, and the struggle for freedom by the Jews in their own country. He always stresses, the “Esquire” because, as he says latter, it’s a title of dignity, “slightly above ‘gentleman’ and below ‘knight,’” probably a designation he would like his profession to be worthy of. The main character does want to accomplish judicial reform, but he is a conflicted man who is capable of succumbing to the pessimism of fighting a broken legal system and willing to give into his selfish needs. The film examines the internal conflict between the angels and demons inside a person, and the hope for redemption.

We know right from the beginning that Roman (Denzel Washington) is a flawed person because he is writing up a legal brief suing himself, stating he should be disbarred for being a hypocrite and betraying everything he stood for. But, the fact that he is indicting himself shows that he is aware of his violations. IMDb notes that the letters are in all caps except the word “he,” implying that Roman is a servant of something greater than himself, possibly the righteous intention of the law. The typing with Roman’s voice-over allows for backstory to be introduced. Roman worked in a two-partner law firm in Los Angeles, and his job was “drafting briefs, motions, and pleadings.” But his partner took care of the courtroom activities.

The story then jumps backward three weeks. Washington looks more like Professor Cornell West than The Equalizer, appearing pudgy, with a medium Afro haircut (which shows his sympathies for the protest movements in the 60’s and 70’s) and large glasses, which stresses he is a thinker, not an action figure. However, his partner, William Jackson, has a heart attack, leaving Roman to clean up the pending cases. The legal assistant, Vernita (Lynda Gravatt), tells him to just ask for continuances as a delay tactic.

Roman is behind the times with what is happening in the present, as he doesn’t even know that another attorney retired a few years ago. He is afraid to go through security, saying the detection equipment will wipe out the songs on his early generation iPod. He carries a flip phone. The prosecutor in the first case doesn’t even know that Roman was the partner. Roman tells her that he doesn’t have the temperament for what happens in a courtroom. He shortly shows why since he is sarcastic about what he considers is the severity of the charges against a seventeen-year-old for breaking and entering. She says the defendant was caught wearing a gang member’s insignia. Roman’s sharp response is that’s like wearing “a flag pin in a lapel.” He is saying the display of an affiliation does not mean it should finalize a judgment of someone. He is confrontational, accusing her of just trying to advance her career. She says her conviction rate is “one hundred per cent,” which is a warning, but also sounds like a boast, which justifies Roman’s view of her. He argues that the youth has one minor prior offense, his dad is in jail and his mother is a drug addict. He joined a gang for protection given circumstances beyond his control. Roman says, “Each of us is better than the worst thing we ever did.” His remark indicates that Roman sees a person as a complex creature and should not be judged in his or her entirety by one action. (Washington said that he saw Roman as being on the spectrum, which would account for his lack of social skills).

The young man, Langston Bailey (Niles Fitch), is scared, thinking he would be remanded to juvenile detention. Roman’s crusade is that those being charged with crimes don’t usually get to have their day in court. He tells Langston that private companies build and run prisons, and the workers get paid overtime, so they scare the accused into accepting plea bargains, increasing incarceration which is a profitable enterprise for some, and career-building for others.

In another case involving the sale on three occasions of cocaine, Roman, instead of accepting the judge’s offer for a continuance, argues that his client was denied bathroom usage and not issued his Miranda Rights. The judge overrules Roman, who continues to show his combative nature by arguing, despite warnings to cease. The judge then cites Roman for being in contempt, and the firm can’t afford the fine.

Roman is at war with the world around him because he feels it does not follow the intent of the law. He calls in complaints about construction nose near his apartment since the work is being done outside of legally prescribed hours. He makes many of these calls. In his home he has many jazz record albums that he plays on his turntable showing his inclination for older versions of technology. He doesn’t take care of himself, since he is eating a peanut sandwich with numerous jars of Jiff in the background, the image succinctly conveying the message. He carries around a large briefcase that could be used for weight training. He has a bulging file of typed papers, held together with rubber bands and clips, with no laptop or electronic storage devices in view (we later learn what this huge file contains). On his walls are mementos of 1960’s sayings and images, again illustrating his dedication to civil rights causes.

Roman meets with Lynn Jackson (Amanda Warren), his partner’s niece and power of attorney, and learns that his partner is in a “permanent vegetative state.” Also present is George Pierce (Colin Farrell), a prominent lawyer, who Jackson designated to take over if the occasion arose. Roman wants to handle the workload, but Lynn tells Roman that the firm was doing pro bono work and had been in the red for many years. The plan is to conclude existing cases which George would handle and then liquidate the firm. Roman is devastated emotionally and worries about his financial survival. George shows his admiration for the Jackson, and wants to get hold of the records on existing cases. Roman has it all on cards, not on data bases, which is what George expected to get things moving. Roman has a photographic mind and knows a case that George handled eight years prior (he is like a high-functioning Rain Man). He accuses George of being part of the system of plea-bargaining that short-changes justice. George gives Roman a ride and says he was his Jackson’s law student. He later threw work toward Jackson’s firm, and he received a kickback for each case he referred. It may not have been ethical, but it kept Jackson’s firm running to take care of the social justice cases the firm wanted to pursue. George’s admission reveals to Roman that his boss was a realist, not just an idealist. He says he can use Roman’s keen mind and he’ll pay him double, but the purist Roman declines the offer.

Roman goes to an organization that does civil rights work so he can work as their attorney doing big headline cases, and he states their current work is too limiting. But the worker there, Maya Alston (Carmen Ejogo), tells Roman they are all volunteers, but he can give a talk to civil rights activists about legal matters. She respects Roman as she tells her colleague that his fight for civil rights was initiated by a man like Roman.

Roman continues to search for employment and is continually rejected. His frustration leads him to act as he does later, including working at George’s office. George has him meet Felicity Ellerbee (Elisa Perry), saying he will be working with her to defend her brother who was involved in a robbery and is charged with first degree murder of a shop clerk. The brother was not the shooter and was not complicit in the killing. Felicity has mortgaged her home for the defense, which points to the burden placed on the non-wealthy to mount a decent defense. For that reason, Roman agrees with her that he also doesn’t like the way most lawyers practice law.

George assigns similar cases that will pay little to Roman. George gives these clients the same canned reassurances about getting the best defense possible as he attempts to appear as if the firm is handling cases for people on the economic fringe. However, he does not utilize full resources on these cases. Roman hears a Latino lawyer, Salinas (Tony Plana), telling an unfeeling joke about a domestically abused woman, and then states an ethnic slur which offends Salinas. The attorney doesn’t like it when he is on the receiving line of nasty comment. Roman then says that lawyers like Salinas are “tourists,” as if to say they are just visiting the lives of the clients, but not emotionally committed to the defendants’ plights.

George later chastises Roman for insulting the number two man in the firm, Salinas. Roman’s reluctance to embrace modern times is again shown when he says he didn’t respond to George’s email by saying, “I’m sorry, when people send an email, they seem to think it goes straight to your brain.” Roman says George brought him onboard, “to put your feet to the fire ‘cause you’re tired of treating low-income clients like dollar signs, and maybe because you remember what it was like to actually care.” Roman is giving George credit, which George doesn’t want to accept, probably because he knows the prime function of most law firms is to “make a buck.” Roman then reveals what that huge collection of paper documents he carries consists of. He has 3,500 names for a class-action suit to reform the plea-bargaining system, where, he says, “guilt or innocence is being completely replaced by fear of having your day in court where people are being forced … to plead guilty under the threat of overly harsh, coercive sentences.” He adds that reforming the system is a job for a “legend,” which may be an attempt to persuade George to take up this fight. Or, Roman may also be showing his ego as the squire who wants to be a knight in shining armor. In any case, he urges George to use his resources to reform the legal system. Despite the impassioned speech, George just wants Roman to handle the cases assigned to him.

Roman sees Derrell Ellerbee, Felicity’s brother, and tells the inmate that he can be charged with second-degree murder for aiding and abetting since he knew the accomplice carried a gun to the robbery that resulted in the death of the victim. Derrell wants to make a deal, saying he will testify against his partner, Carter Johnson (Amari Cheaton), and will divulge where he is hiding. Faced with no hope of acquiring help to fight the rigged system, Roman first tries to reduce the charge against his client. But the persecutor will not go below a ten-year sentence and refuses to hear any more debate from Roman. Her response pushes Roman’s anti-establishment button as he condemns her by saying, “I’m sorry for taking a nanosecond off of your assembly line rubber-stamp existence.”

Roman, who doesn’t even have a car in the automobile-dependent city of Los Angeles, which also points to his outsider existence, still attends the meeting that Maya invited him to. He is there to speak about the rights of those arrested for civil disobedience. Roman starts out with an urgency for protesting the wrongs of society, and the cost for opposing the powers in command. But, his old-fashioned ways get him into trouble with a couple of young women in the group who consider what he calls “chivalry” to be sexist when he says that men should let the two females sit down. (We again get a reference to the way Roman sees himself as a knight, like Don Quixote, fighting against a corrupt world). The women are belligerent and Roman argumentative, and he walks out. Maya follows him, and he admits to saying the wrong things. He admits to his outsider way of being, saying he was not meant for this world, being a forceps-delivered baby. As the two talk, Maya notices a homeless man sprawled out on the sidewalk. Roman thinks the man is dead as a police car stops close by. Roman puts his card in the man’s pocket, but the cops tell him not to put anything on the body. The man comes to, and stumbles away. Roman wanted to be contacted by the coroner so he could pay for the funeral. He tells the cops he gave his information so the man “doesn’t end up as just some body. He’s a person.” The scene shows how Roman’s desire to treat even the dead with decency contrasts with the resistance of the law enforcement system.

Roman’s holier-than-thou attitude backfires on him since his attempting to bargain for his client and then rejecting the prosecution’s offer without informing his client allows for an attack on Derrell Ellerbee to take place. The youth is killed before being put into protective custody. George is furious with Roman, saying it opens them up to a lawsuit. He says he will retain Roman until his work is done and then will fire him. If Roman doesn’t go along with the plan George will have him disbarred.

Roman is mugged on the way home at night and he fights the man off saying, “You’ve got the wrong guy.” His statement refers to the fact that he has no money, but more than that, ironically, it means he is being attacked by the kind of social outcast he has been trying to help. He then visits his comatose partner. He shares his disillusionment with Jackson’s wife. He tells her that there are places where people sit on beaches and enjoy life, and he now implies that he is going to drop out of an irretrievably broken system and take care of his own needs.

Since he no longer has a client to bargain for, Roman anonymously calls in the whereabouts of Carter Johnson, the shooter of the shop clerk, to collect the $100,000 reward. He has the cash dropped off in an alley in a dumpster, which symbolically shows that Roman’s ethics have been trashed. He looks at himself in the mirror, a traditional symbol to reflect the other side of a person, which is usually negative. He goes to the Santa Monica seashore, eats doughnuts, buys new clothes, stays at an upscale hotel, and enjoys the beach. He even rents a luxury apartment, greases down his large afro and is now able to text and order an Uber. He is becoming part of the modern tech “me” movement.

When he returns to George’s firm, he looks cool in a new suit. George informs him that his partner died, and George is apologetic about how harshly he treated Roman. Jackson’s niece, Lynn, told George how vital Roman was to her uncle’s firm, and that Roman was only used to being in the background. That made it difficult for him to be thrust into courtroom proceedings. George also says they picked up three clients because Roman always hands out his business cards to others. George validates Roman’s worth by saying that it will now be a standard practice for his attorneys to hand out cards. Also, there will be no lawsuit about what happened to Derrell Ellerbee, since the man’s sister felt Roman was doing what he could for her brother, which eventually turned out to be Roman doing what was best for himself. Roman wants to stay on at the law firm. He says, “I’m tired of doing the impossible for the ungrateful.” He is feeling no satisfaction at this moment for his crusading for the underprivileged.

His new stance of thinking about his own needs seems to be paying off. George starts up a new pro bono program that Roman will head. This proposal seems ideal since Roman will be helping poor people but through a rich law firm that can pay him a good salary. Also, Maya calls to ask him out to dinner. He takes her to a fancy restaurant whose expensive menus contrasts with Maya’s talking about how Roman’s progressive activism on behalf of others was a real inspiration to her just as she was having doubts about achieving justice for the disadvantaged. He seems to justify her skepticism and his own by saying that “purity can’t survive in this world.” He says something that is illegal, like stealing a car, can be a tool for escape. He is justifying doing something unlawful, like taking the reward money based on his client’s information, which allowed him to get away from his failing attempt to right the wrongs of the justice system. Maya is acting as his conscience, reminding how “blessed” it is to believe in a cause.

At Jackson’s funeral, the minister talks about the long arc of justice that Roman’s partner was invested in. Roman has his head down, which appears to reflect his mourning, but it also suggests that he feels the push back against his current revised path away from his mentor’s. Lynn, Jackson’s niece, urges Roman to speak at her uncle’s memorial. Roman declines because his now cynical attitude places the blame for society’s problems on the individual, not the institutions. He tells her, “The real enemies aren’t the ones on the outside, they’re on the inside.” Maya gives Roman the ceramic bulldog which belonged to her uncle, a symbol of the need for stubborn persistence in the face of unfair opposition. Roman places it in his office, and as he stares at the object it becomes a reminder that he has relinquished his convictions.

George confesses to Roman that he was not going to be a lawyer until he had a class with Jackson who showed the possibilities of making positive changes for the good in the legal system. George then committed to the law, but he says that one has to make a living and now owns several offices. Jackson saw his mercenary ways as “drowning in the shallow end” of a pool, a nice metaphor to point to the lack of meaningful depth in George’s work. George is even ready to help Roman with his long struggle to attack the plea-bargaining problem that denies the opportunity for trials. Now that Roman is there, George’s desire to connect with the disadvantaged community is renewed, and it is ironic that George’s capitalistic ways have had the opposite effect on Roman.

George meets Roman for a new case at the correctional institution, and Roman learns that it is a capital offense involving Carter Johnson, the man Roman anonymously turned in based on Johnson’s now deceased partner, and Roman’s former client, Derrell Ellerbe. When George turns the discussion over to Roman and leaves, Carter tells Roman he knows he’s in prison for life and that it was Roman who turned him in by breaking the law regarding privileged information. He then tells Roman, “you broke your own law,” and says he will reveal the lawyer’s crime so that he can be in jail. In any event, Carter is out for revenge. Roman is scared by the threat and, in a panic, calls for the guard to get out of the prison he fears he may be placed in.

Outside, Roman tears off his suit jacket, as if he needs to breath, and the piece of clothing has become a monetary straitjacket that he traded his values in for. He receives a call at work from an unidentified source and no one speaks on the other end before hanging up. Back at his old apartment he fluffs up his afro, as if to change his appearance, but it also seems like he’s rejecting his new way of life. He rents a U-Haul truck to help him flee the scene. He is paranoid that he is being followed. He takes a desert road (suggesting the desolate nature of his current life?) and a car comes up quickly behind him, causing Roman to veer off the road and head out of his vehicle. The other car comes back, and its occupants ask if he is okay. He says, “I was running. It was a mistake.” He could literally mean his going into the desert on foot, but he really refers to how he is running away from his problems.

He receives a call from Maya who is sad because a volunteer quit saying that he was just there to improve his resume. Roman’s comment is, “The ability to have conflicting ideas in one’s head takes effort.” He may be talking about the worker, but he could be referring to himself, torn between his idealism and skeptical selfishness. He says he is in a desert, and she thinks he means the barrenness that can exist in one’s mind. Of course, she is also correct. Her advice is to move oneself out of that lonely place, and that is what Roman literally and figuratively does.

Roman goes back to the firm and uses its legal resources to continue his epic plea-bargaining suit. We now return to the beginning of the film as we see him preparing the petition against himself. As he is typing, a worker says he heard that Roman accepted the reward money for the case he was working on and asks if the rumor is true. Obviously, Carter has publicized Roman’s crime. He tells his assistant he is leaving and that the man can handle the workload. He meets Maya at a bar and gives her the bulldog, as if passing to her the torch of what’s “vital” in the practicing of the law.

George saw Roman on the street and followed him to the bar. George heard of the accusation about the reward. Roman says he doesn’t care about the money, and he is heading to the police station to turn himself in. He says he had an epiphany that he is, “the defendant and the plaintiff simultaneously.” He goes on to say that he convicts himself, and “the only thing left is forgiveness, and I grant that to myself. An act doesn’t make the person guilty unless the mind is guilty as well.” It is a controversial statement, since although true forgiveness must eventually come from within, one can be objectively guilty while believing what one has done is a righteous act.

Roman tells George that the young lawyer can have a “shining” future, which may again hint at the “knight in shining armor” he envisions a great lawyer can be. As he walks off a car stops and a man with a gun gets out. Roman receives a call and says he remembers who the caller is, since he gave him his business card. He is in the act of serving someone again when George hears a shot. We do not see Roman, but George approaches and finds Roman’s thick briefcase on the ground, and we know that Roman is dead, as he has paid the price for his loss of faith in his quest.

The next scene shows George opening Roman’s briefcase and reviewing the documents. Maya instructs followers concerning legal protests as Jackson’s bulldog sits above her meeting, watching over her. After having the law firm prepare the argument, George submits the documents in Federal Court. He is honoring Roman’s legacy, as is Maya. Roman mailed back the reward money, minus five thousand dollars, which he had hoped to repay. He says in his letter, “We are formed of frailty and error. Let us pardon, reciprocally, each other’s follies. That is the first law of nature.” His last words transcend written statutes and suggest practicing compassion is what would prevent human transgression.

The next film is Black-k-Klansman.