172139011
Denzel Washington’s latest, “The Equalizer,” opens Friday. See these first.
Flight (2012)
Washington’s best performance is as Whip Whitaker, the alcoholic pilot in this unique dramatic feat, which begins as a disaster film then morphs into a compelling character study. Whip may manage to fly a seemingly doomed plane upside down so as to save passengers, but he still needs to contend with the ramifications of the fact that, amid the disaster, he himself was as high as kite.
Training Day (2001)
The film that won Washington a Best Actor Oscar casts him as Alonzo, a deeply corrupt narcotics detective in Los Angeles. His on-edge trainee, played by Ethan Hawke, slowly dismantles the shield Alonzo uses to cover his shady ways, but that doesn’t stop Washington from utterly stealing the show. He’s not a loose cannon; he’s a lit fuse.
The Pelican Brief (1993)
This under-appreciated John Grisham adaptation stars Washington alongside Julia Roberts, who plays an in-over-her-head law student to his game-for-anything political reporter. Her detailed and prescient brief about the murder of two Supreme Court justices lands the pair in hot water, and the late director Alan J. Pakula documents their cat-and-mouse chase with elegance and suspense.
Fallen (1998)
Horror flicks are a dime a dozen, but how many feature a demon that passes from one possessee to the next via touch? That’s the conceit of this pseudo-cult Washington title from 1998, which was set and shot in Philadelphia, and stars the actor as a police detective who’s all but helpless against the evil presence he’s after. There are ample indelible thrills in the film, but what lasts longest are the creepy connotations it permanently applies to the Rolling Stones’ cover of “Time Is on My Side.” ■
American Gangster (2007)
It never fully connected with critics and audiences, but Ridley Scott’s “American Gangster” is a grand crime epic, with Washington in solid, unapologetic form as Frank Lucas, the mafioso who oversaw the Harlem crime scene in the late 1960s and ’70s. Like “Training Day,” this drama sees Washington play a despicable figure, and yet, his determination makes you root for him nonetheless. ■
Denzel Washington’s portrayal of Whip Whitaker earned him an Oscar nod.
172139011
172138931
