Why Denzel Washington is forever

“Only Angels Have Denzel”. Portrait of the star of The 7 Mercenaries.

In 2016, First published a favorite portrait of Denzel Washington on the occasion of the release of the remake of Seven Mercenaries. While it will be rebroadcast this Friday evening on France 2 (followed by Creed II), we share it again to wait. Note also that recently, the American actor told us once again amazed in Gladiator IIby Ridley Scott.

What is the Mercenary Seven remake worth?

News from September 27, 2016: At 61, he has no scandals or franchises to his name, no Instagram account or public life. What he has is himself: a hyper-charismatic actor who is his own franchise, a '90s star who continues to make '90s films in an industry mired in childhood and the virtual. How ? For what ? Attempts at answers.

Solid. Rooted. Feet on the ground. Americans have a word that unites them all: “Grounded”. So. Denzel Washington East grounded. When he first steps into the frame, you know he’s there. For good. That it's not going to fly away. Usually, he gets out of a car and floats in the direction of a crime scene. The way he winks before turning his head, his long arms thrown forward, his big cat gait, legs crossed… Close your eyes, you're there. Whatever he does at this crime scene, you can be sure it will be done in no time. There is no one more qualified for the job. Almost too much, judging by the slight air of weariness. Denzel plays professionals who have “exceeded” their jobs, making money from just about everything. Not just retired, medal winners or corrupt, but almost always alcoholics, potential alcoholics or repentant alcoholics. Professions that are essentially working class: cop, Leroy Merlin employee, high school coach, small-time lawyer, train driver, etc. Denzel comes to us as a simple representative of humanity, as a Mr. Everyman not quite like everyone else. In a room full of other actors, as in his 7 Mercenarieshe is the one we recognize as our point of reference and entry into history. That he claims to have been a back-up singer for Gladys Knightwhether he's running a submarine or shooting his six-shooter (superbly), we instantly believe him. And even when his character could give us reason to doubt, we continue to believe him, until the end. Because it's Denzel… Who else to survive a (incidentally great) film like Training Day ? Who else to overcome the enormous storyline constraint of keeping Hoyt (Ethan Hawke) in Alonzo's (Denzel) car despite the horrors he witnesses? Watching the film, we don't ask ourselves the question; Poor Hoyt had no choice, obviously. He was obliged to stay in the car. Look at it again, it’s very clear. Cinema magic? No. Denzel magic.

Denzel Washington in Seven Secret Boots

Closer to you Denzel
In the remake of Seven Mercenaries made by his sidekick Antoine Fuquahe plays a former soldier with a dust-filled mustache, a friendly and smiling cowboy with a glint of gravity in his eyes. This same nice but secretly angry anti-hero character that made him a stable commercial value in an infantilized Marvel world. Here again, he walks around the set of an average action film as if he were in a play.Arthur Miller. And again, he is the only one. Twenty to thirty minutes of film are necessary before realizing what we are seeing: Denzel. On a Horse. And nothing (or no one) else. The heroic charges are filmed in anamorphic, the subplots pile up around the six companions, but the aesthetic of the star Washington remains the one and only principle of the staging. How he crosses the saloon door by “passing through”, without feeling the need to push the doors, the dignity he shows in chopping wood and wiping the sweat from his forehead with the bands of his hat , his gaze inhabited by demons when he scans the valley on the back of a canasson… Broad shoulders, very, very tall, Denzel uses his morphology with this appetite for gesture and this sense of incarnation that we loved in the actors of the years 40. No one moves like that anymore these days. He glides into the image with the quiet confidence of an old Bogart tomcat and delivers his lines as a good (avowed) disciple of Cagney, like a wolf devours its prey. Gene Hackman (the white Denzel?) is probably the closest contemporary actor he gets in terms of intimidation and sheer physical presence. They both have this genius of the carnivorous smile, of the fixed and granite gaze which reduces the guy opposite to nothing; Tony Scott was not mistaken in organizing their summit meeting in USS Alabama… But if Denzel has made his boxer's body his number 1 tool, he also knows how to work “around it”. At 61, his physiology no longer allows him to lose and regain weight at will, as in the heyday of Malcolm X And Philadelphiaand his silhouette suffers. Rather than let this little detail spoil the party, he uses it. Recently, he has made a specialty of “sit-down” action films. In The attack on subway 123, Unstoppableand until Flighteverything explodes around him but Denzel directs the operations with his ass screwed into a chair. Sat. Grounded.

Denzel Washington in Hurricane Carter (1999).

Only Angels Have Denzel
Rooted, it is also in American cinema. Its themes, its violence, its quest for complexity. Particularly the adult and grandiloquent cinema of the 90s. Like his fellow stars of the time, Tom Hanks has Mel Gibson passing through Kevin CostnerDenzel quickly sought to escape the uniformly positive characters to embrace his dark side and “tempt the devil”, in the most literal sense of the term. Like them, he moved on to directing (Antwone Fisher, The Debatters and soon Fencesthree films on the racial question), with fewer results, but also fewer pretensions. Where his classmates acclimatized to the time, losing their commercial exclusivity in favor of Twilightearned him the right to remain a bankable star and, more importantly, to remain a 90's star. Is there anything more anachronistic than a film Denzel Washington in the landscape of US commercial cinema? If you look closely, all his recent films belong to the past. Man On Fire ? Bodyguard on cocaine. Inside Man ? A Bogie detective story. Flight ? A paranoid melodrama from the 50s. The new one 7 Mercenaries ? A facsimile of Silverado which passes itself off as the remake of a 1960 classic… Only four films in Denzel's career have exceeded the $100 million mark at the US box office, but none has fallen below 50, the audiences won over by the “Bible Belt” ensuring a guaranteed minimum return. It is here, in the Protestant South of the United States, that the real reason for its longevity lies. Here are its true roots, and where its followers abound, first and foremost black women. And what do African-American women hate most of all? That their favorite lover gets involved with white girls. Very aware of his core target, Denzel has avoided throughout his career flirting a little too closely with Julia Roberts and Angelina Jolie, Eva Mendes regularly serving as his ethnic alibi. It was only in 2013, with Flightwhich he closed his eyes and decided to kiss Kelly Reilly on the mouth (and again, at the tips of the lips)…

The sense of religion is inseparable from his films. Son of a pastor with a troubled past, ex-delinquent, ex-alcoholic, Denzel never hesitates to preach Evil for Good, to suffer as a martyr (or as a Judas) for the cause. For better or for worse, without us really seeing it coming, he has become Charles Bronsonevangelist tendency. One hand on the gun, the other on the Bible. He will kill you, yes, but not before reciting a Jesus-Mary. And so he hammers nails into Russian mobsters and sends the Mexican kidnappers to the cemetery with their rosaries. In The Seven Mercenarieshe administers the last rites to the villain before blowing up the caisson, where Bronson himselfin the original, babysat the children. This is all too serious and not serious enough. You might think he's wasting himself a bit in these biblical impaler roles. But can we be more grounded?

Trailer for 7 Mercenaries :

Denzel Washington – An American role model: from the triumph of Glory to his influence on Black Panther