We all need Fences to be a great film, including Denzel Washington

Fences is an important film for the next stage of Denzel Washington’s career, one that has a chance to wash away some of his missteps of the last few years, and another well-deserved opportunity to find his way to an Academy Award.

Let’s make one thing very clear: Denzel Washington is one of the best actors of his time. There is absolutely no debating both the consistency and longevity of his acting career as a performer that has, time and time again, brought us timeless characters and movies alike. Yet, at the same time, the success of Fences, Washington’s new film in which he stars and directs, matters.

It matters because this is the movie that will transition Denzel’s career into its twilight years. Believe it or not, but Denzel is 61 years old; even though, if you let him speak to you long enough, I’m sure he could easily convince you he was 45, and your only response would be, “Yes sir. My mistake.” Nevertheless, there will come a point, very soon, where both he, and we as fans, will have to come to terms with the fact that he will not remain the type of captivating force as a movie star that he was for so many years.

Denzel is aging, and Fences, if it holds up, has a chance to be both a bookend for the younger star that we will never forget and the prologue to a new stage of his career in which he can shed the responsibilities of the box office and focus on whatever he chooses. From everything that we’ve seen so far in its two trailers, Fences has the chance to bring us one last iconic Denzel Washington performance that also happens to fall right in the middle of awards season.

That isn’t to say that Fences will be the last great Denzel movie, or that he will never have another chance at an Academy Award again. Rather, it is important to note the last few years of Denzel’s career and how a movie like Fences might shape them more favorably for him in the court of public opinion. Let’s look at the last several years of movies.

From 2010 until now, Denzel has starred in (chronologically):

The Book of Eli
Unstoppable
Safe House
Flight
2 Guns
The Equalizer
The Magnificent Seven
Fences

Only one of those movies, Flight (Fences releases on Christmas Day), can be considered an objectively good movie, and one in which Denzel also provided one of his most subtle yet challenging performances. Look closely at those other movies, and you see a small trend: an actor being asked by the industry to carry questionable films with shaky plots using nothing but sheer talent.

It is, again, important to remember these movies. Because if Fences falls short, they remain an asterisk on a storied career. The Denzel Washington of the 2010s has been what can best be described as the film industry version of Russell Westbrook: a superstar with almost inhuman talent, rising above mediocre surroundings while still managing to elevate those surroundings to the best of his abilities. No matter how much talent they may have, the inferior talent surrounding Denzel and Westbrook ultimately prevent them from achieving the accolades they deserve.

When watching The Magnificent Seven, one of the most striking things about it is how subdued and reserved Denzel’s performance in it is. With such frustratingly forced dialogue and poor plot pacing, it almost seems like a breath of fresh air when Washington finally lets loose on the film’s villain at the very end of the movie, albeit too late in the game to save the film.

We have been held at bay for six years waiting for the Denzel we know and love to show up, but instead we have been given roles where it seems the movie controls him and not the other way around. We want artistically unhinged Denzel.

If one were to compare the 2010s Denzel with that of 2000s Denzel, one would notice an almost unconscionable difference. Here are Denzel’s movies from 2001-2009, in order:

Training Day
John Q
Antwone Fisher
Out of Time
Man on Fire
Manchurian Candidate
Inside Man
Deja Vu
American Gangster
The Great Debaters
Taking of Pelham 123

Even the worst of those movies, John Q and Out of Time, were still fun for the single fact that at no point did it feel like anyone else had control of those films but Denzel. Your eyes were fixated on him at all times, and even when the plot was lacking or someone was trying to convince us James Woods could be a heart surgeon, Denzel was firing on all cylinders. Not to mention that the best of those movies left us in utter disbelief every time.

His acting as Alonzo in Training Day had us convinced that it might actually be okay to be a crooked cop if it meant we got to be that cool in the process. Watching peak Denzel was like watching someone only catch one-handed touchdowns, three or four times a game, for 10 straight years. He was electrifying, entrancing and demanding of your attention over everything else in his films to the point that you never wanted him to leave the screen.

The first traces of what he used to be can be found in the first trailer for Fences, when Washington’s character proceeds to give his son a lecture about liking him. “What law says that I got to like you?” his character asks. What follows is the closest thing someone can ever come to winning an Oscar from a trailer.

Fences matters because of this trailer. It matters because of Denzel’s last six years. It matters because of what he used to be, what he has chosen to be this decade, and what he has the chance to be after a film like this. Sure, the trailer for Fences could be both expert editing of an incredible monologue about fatherhood, or the consolidation of Denzel’s only real memorable scenes in the movie. Just because he’s been given August Wilson’s original play as source material doesn’t necessarily mean that he can elevate it to something transcendent.

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However, what Fences has the chance to become is something truly missing from the last few years of Denzel’s career; the relentless, unfiltered energy that he had mastered for so many years. Furthermore, if it doesn’t show up in a film like this, there is a chance that we may have already seen Denzel’s best work. Here’s to hoping he can finally put us at ease.