Denzel Washington sometimes feels like the personification of the old maxim about how African-Americans must be “twice as good to get half as much.” His last big role was his masterful, self-directed performance in 2016’s adaptation of August Wilson’s “Fences,” but the best actor of his generation remains the best whether he’s playing drug kingpin Frank Lucas in “American Gangster” or recreating the Yul Brynner role in last year’s “Magnificent Seven” remake. In an industry where legends like De Niro and Pacino increasingly sleepwalk to paychecks, he simply does not slum it. All this is to say that when I heard Washington would be playing a lawyer on the autism spectrum in “Roman J. Israel, Esq.,” I wasn’t as nervous as this kind of casting normally makes me. Playing a disabled character is notorious as a cynical fast-track to awards attention, but Washington is the last actor on earth who would … Continue Reading ››