‘ROMAN J. ISREAL, ESQ.’

PG-13 2:02 ★ ★ ★ ★

It’s getting close to Oscar season, and that means it’s time for an early prediction. Ready? Here goes: The Academy Award for Worst Title of a Motion Picture will surely go to “Roman J. Israel, Esq.”

This complex, untidy but ambitious film starring a brilliant Denzel Washington deserves better. The difficulty may be because this is an unusual character journey that chews on huge issues not frequently tackled on film. Directed and written by Dan Gilroy, “Roman J. Israel, Esq.” traces the fall from grace of a man not in the predictable way when he hits rock bottom but how a broken person actually rises in wealth and esteem.

Washington plays Israel, an attorney in modern-day Los Angeles who for decades has been the quiet, backroom brains of a two-person criminal defense firm until he’s called upon to step forward. He’s somewhat illequipped to do so.

Yet Israel is an old-school civil rights warrior who is a lonely genius — someone calls him a “savant” and another says he’s a “freak.” Israel is stubbornly lost in the ‘70s, but has an iPod and a flip phone, a transparent attempt by the filmmakers to have their cake and eat it, too. And if he’s such a savant, why can’t he figure out better choices? His love interest seems tacked on and the film also raises questions it never really answers — like, can the old civil rights strategies really work in today’s fragmented identity politics?

Washington gives us another astounding performance, but the film around him often isn’t as skillful, meandering in places and gradually becoming more like a lot of other films. Soon, an unconventional character is starring in a conventional film.

Starring: Denzel Washington, Colin Farrell and Carmen Ejogo. (Language and some violence) — Mark Kennedy, Associated Press father (Tracy Letts) regarding the family’s straitened finances and her own angst and ambitions.

“Lady Bird” is a triumph of style, sensibility and spirit. The girl at its center may not be a heavyweight, but her movie is epic.

Starring: Saoirse Ronan, Odeya Rush and Timothee Chalamet. (Obscenity, sexuality, brief graphic nudity and teen partying)

— Ann Hornaday, Washington Post changing the characters names and slightly shifting their background while still maintaining much of the connective tissue to “The Last Detail.”

There are scenes here that pulsate with anti-war passion, sometimes a little too obviously, sometimes effectively. But despite its flaws, the film gathers an honest force as it burrows deeper into its characters as the group makes its way up the coast. It’s a trip that glimmers with both mournful reflection on the human cost of war and the abiding camaraderie among soldiers.

Starring: Bryan Cranston, Laurence Fishburne and Steve Carell. (Language throughout including some sexual references)

— Jake Coyle, Associated Press her teenage daughter was raped, murdered and incinerated seven months ago. Not only has the investigation into her daughter’s case stalled, but the local police also have been preoccupied by scandal, thanks to hot-tempered, dim-witted mama’s boy Officer Jason Dixon (Sam Rockwell, whose brilliantly unhinged turn nearly matches the ferocity of McDormand’s), an unabashed racist accused of torturing a black suspect in his custody.

Determined to provoke the cops into getting back on her daughter’s case, Mildred literally takes out three billboards on a little used stretch of road outside town and point-blank asks Chief Bill Willoughby (twotime Oscar nominee Woody Harrelson in one of his best performances of his career) in looming bold black letters on blood-red backgrounds why he hasn’t made any arrests.

Willoughby visits Mildred to share his own frustrations about the lack of leads and evidence in her daughter’s case — and to share a secret that makes her billboard scheme seem in particularly poor taste. It turns out that Mildred already knows the sheriff’s secret and is unmoved by his troubles.

Anguish and anger have transformed Mildred into a grim-faced, blue-collared fury, and nothing, not her teenage son’s (Lucas Hedges) distressed protests, not her wife-beating ex-husband’s (John Hawkes) threats, not Dixon’s vicious outrage, and certainly not the sneering disapproval of the local priest or dentist, is going to steer her off the road she’s taken with her billboards.

Like most McDonagh stories, the road running through his “Three Billboards” takes numerous startling — and often bonejarringly violent — turns. But his latest film is more than just a twisty small-town tale, it’s also a bold exploration into the life-changing and often corrosive nature of grief.

Starring: Frances McDormand, Sam Rockwell, Woody Harrelson, Lucas Hedges, John Hawkes and Peter Dinklage. (Violence, language throughout and some sexual references)

— Brandy McDonnell,

The Oklahoman