Though his most popular and lucrative fare involves him dispensing with a variety of agents and operatives,Denzel Washingtonis at his best when he’s allowed to route out splinters of humanity in otherwise troubled or closed-off characters. In quiet moments with directors who fully understand his talent, he communicates the troubles of his characters in deafening quiet far better than dialogue penned bySteve Zaillianor evenCarl Franklin. In fact, his ability to hold the screen while doing nothing more than staring someone down silently has come to become the most popular tool in his repertoire.
It’s to the point where you can be forgiven for forgetting how enthralling and moving he is when he really engages with his character, the material, and . The bombastic humor of Detective Frazier inInside Man, the complex, prejudiced soul of a hustling lawyer inPhiladelphia, and the overwhelming verbal force ofMalcolm Xshowcase a mercurial, insightful performer and the fact that those things are near-impossible to replicate is what makes them so unique in the history of American cinema. In between these peaks and the valleys of his most recent work, there’s a loamy hash of characters that touch on crucial political ideas and complex questions of identity.
In honor of his latest film,Roman J. Israel Esq., I decided to highlight and rank all of his movies from the soulfulFor Queen and CountrytoAntoine Fuqua’s bloated remake ofThe Magnificent Seven. Enjoy!
45) ‘Carbon Copy’
Rare is the instance in which a great actor’s debut performance ranks amongst his best and Washington is no exception. In this comedic family drama about a white high-powered executive, Walter Whitney (George Segal), who finds out that he has an illegitimate son named Roger (Washington) from a long-forgotten liaison, there’s little to enjoy beyond the spectacle of such a wrong-headed script being produced in the first place. Washington is amiable and energetic but his role is little more than a bad reason to incite chaos in Walter’s professional and personal life, laying the groundwork for a white rich man’s philosophical and spiritual awakening. Perhaps this felt progressive in 1981 but these days, it feels like a rote retelling ofGuess Who’s Coming to Dinner.
44) ‘Heart Condition’
A true oddity, and one that probably shouldn’t have been made in the first place.James D. Parriott’s 1990 dramedy pairs Washington withBob Hoskins, who plays a racist LAPD detective who is saved by a rare transplant after he suffers a heart attack. The catch? The heart belonged to Napoleon Stone (Washington), a murdered corrupt lawyer who Hoskins’ Moony had a grudge against for a litany of reasons. Soon after Moony’s recovery, Stone’s wisecracking ghost begins to haunt the detective and demands that he locate those responsible for his killing, clearing a route for Moony to drop his bigotry and live his best life.
There’s nothing good about this movie and that’s thanks largely to Hoskins’ character, who is irrefutably the protagonist of the movie. He’s vehemently unlikable and for all the charm and thoughtful timing Washington gives his own character, the movie itself is a miserable task to sit through with Moony as the anchor. In short, there’s a very good reason why this is Parriott’s only film released in movie theaters.
43) ‘The Equalizer’
In the wake ofTraining Day, Washington began taking on a series of instantly forgettable actioners, only distinguishable by titles, shifts in cast and crew, and ignorable plot details. This may be the worst of the bunch. Based on the CBS series of the same name, which centered on an ex-special forces agent turned secret vigilante,Antoine Fuqua’s follow-up toOlympus Has Fallenutilizes a frustratingly limited array of Washington’s gifts to create little more than a cool, calm, and collected killing machine. Centered on Washington’s Robert McCall and his vow to take down the Russian mafia after they nearly kill McCall’s friendly neighborhood teenage prostitute (Chloe Grace Moretz), the whole enterprise is a grim slog meant to do little more than reinforce some vague, wildly violent masculine fantasy of protecting and avenging vulnerable women.
42) ‘The Taking of Pelham 123’
Tony Scott’s risible remake ofJoseph Sargent’s classic New York City thriller carries all the familiar stylistic nuances that came to define the late filmmaker’s filmography, for better or worse. In this case, it’s mostly the latter. The most obvious problem here isJohn Travolta, who seems to be operating on a mixture of cocaine, coffee beans, and an IV of testosterone in his role as Ryder, the leader of an armed cadre of hijackers who hold a train car full of passengers hostage for a payday of $10 million. His main contact is Washington’s Garber, who keeps the trains running on time for the MTA and spends much of the film sparring verbally with Ryder until the NYPD can get their shit together. Where Sargent’s original was a tightly wound, simmering game of philosophical gamesmanship, Scott’s is an ever-exploding powder keg meant to do nothing more than avoid monotony. To his credit, Washington is as loose, witty, and captivating in his role asWalter Matthauwas in the original, but what use is a single empathetic constant amongst unending, empty bedlam?
41) ‘The Book of Eli’
40) ‘Deja Vu’
Arguably the most convoluted and bizarre film thatTony Scottever helmed,Déjà Vuis one of Washington’s rare forays into the world of science fiction and essentially plays out like a chopped-and-screwed variation ofMinority Report. As ATF agent Doug Carlin, who joins an elite group of advanced surveillance experts to investigate the bombing of a New Orleans ferry, Washington does his very best to anchor this heap of nonsense from screenwritersBill MarsiliiandTerry Rossiobut even he gets lost in Scott’s explosive melee. It’s worth watching just to witness how far into the deep end that Scott, his writers, and the cast, which also includesJim Caviezel,Paula Patton, andVal Kilmer, get themselves but the grim, self-serious tone once again deflates what might have been a passable romp.
39) ‘The Magnificent Seven’
My running theory for why this insufferable remake ofJohn Sturges’ satisfactory 1960 western runs at an unconscionable 132 minutes is thatAntoine Fuquafelt the need to make everything about the original bigger, if not even remotely better. Itself a take-off ofAkira Kurosawa’s majesticSeven Samurai, the original story finds a cadre of gunslingers protecting a small village near Sonora, Mexico from a gang of oppressive bandits that have been bilking the villagers for their meager allotments of food and possessions. Fuqua’s version tradesYul Brenner,Charles Bronson,Steve McQueen, andEli Wallachin for Washington,Chris Pratt,Vincent D’Onofrio, andLee Byung-hunand the film’s eye for diversity in casting is about as notable an element of this bloated would-be epic as you’re likely to find. Otherwise, this is standard Fuqua fare, marked by egregious emotional manipulation, rampant violence, and a tone that goes a long way to stress how manly martyrdom can be.
38) ‘2 Guns’
Do you remember this movie? I don’t, and I just revisited it two days ago. That’s how miraculously innocuous and bland this pestering adaptation ofSteven Grant’s graphic novel of the same name turns out to be, even with gifted Icelandic directorBaltasar Kormakurat the helm. The lone beacon of light here is that Washington is looser and more awake here as one half of the titular diptych than he usually is in action movies. It’s unclear if that’s due toBlake Masters’ script or, more likely, the presence ofMark Wahlbergas his partner but he nevertheless gives this mess of gunfire, one-liners, and broad male camaraderie it’s lone pulse of life.
37) ‘John Q.’
The entire purpose of watching this 2002 action-melodrama is to see Washington in the title role of a father who takes a hospital hostage when he can no longer afford the heart transplant that his dying son requires. DirectorNick Cassavetesis motivated by little more than keeping the audiences attention and making them bawl uncontrollably by the end of this elongated 116-minute waste of time. In that, he arguably succeeds, but neither he nor writerJames Kearnsseems to care much about the political systems and societal conflicts that have rendered something as simple as universal health coverage a seeming impossibility in America. Rather than dig into the workaday life of a blue-collar worker and his family’s struggle to keep things balanced, the film focuses on histrionics, emotional platitudes, and the fight between righteousness and the rigid mandates of law & order. Washington ably commands the screen and Cassavetes makes great use ofRobert Duvall,James Woods, andKimberly Elisein supporting roles, but the film cheapens and borderline delegitimizes a very serious issue by boiling it down to a David vs. Goliath dynamic.
36) ‘Virtuosity’
This 1995 whatsit is in a similar vein asDéjà Vubut marked by a more welcome narrative simplicity. Here, Washington plays Parker Barnes, a former lieutenant in the LAPD who was imprisoned for fatally shooting a news crew by accident. The powers that be let him out, however, to hunt down SID 6.7 (Russell Crowein a rare bombastic performance), an amalgamation of evil personalities brought to life through some wildly ludicrous magic-science. It’s a cat-and-mouse game for the most part and both Washington and Crowe make it work at that level, even with the ill-advised inclusion of a subplot involvingKelly Lynch’s Madison Carter and her daughter as Barnes’ proxy family. What directorBrett Leonardand writerEric Berntfail to do is give a comprehensive view of how the incredible technological advancements of their futuristic society affect any other realm other than law enforcement. Instead, they seem perfectly happy to borrow familiar dystopian plot elements to evince a sense of place, none of which helpsVirtuosityrise beyond its dubious status as a mid-range oddity.
