The Name’s Denzel, John Denzel

Y’all know Denzel Washington right? He became a leading man actor in the early 1990s when Hollywood amalgamated Richard Gere and Kevin Costner into one all-purpose leading man with better teeth and hair that’s neither thinning nor prematurely grey. He’s done a good job and performed in many thrilling films and even won an Oscar for his performance as Ali G in the Ali G biopic called Training Day. He had played Malcolm X once, but it was in getting Ali G’s mannerisms down pat and showing the violent life behind Ali G’s interviewing style that finally solidified Denzel as an established star.

The only problem is that Mr. Washington has never had a film franchise the way Harrison Ford, Mel Gibson, Steve Guttenberg, and Bruce Willis have. (unless you count the upcoming The Inside Man 2: Deeper Inside a Man that Spike Lee says he wants to make, but I doubt it will happen.) I think I’ve got a solution. Denzel Washington plays really similar guys in lots of movies. Come on, you love him but you’ve got to admit it’s true. He’s some sort of military/law-enforcement type with a troubling past who ends up being a stoic beacon of morality at the centre of a mystery thriller plot that leads to guilt and corruption in the corridors of power. Jeeps flips over, hummers explode, crusty old white guys offer bribes to get Denzel out of the picture, little girls frequently get kidnapped.

What if we could find a way to make all these films sequels to each other? It would boost the significance of all the films to be part of something larger than one individual film. What if Man On Fire, Viruosity, Fallen, Out of Time, The Siege, The Inside Man, Crimson Tide, The Pelican Brief, Déjà Vu and so many others could all be adventures belonging to one hero?

My idea is to make a prequel film that sets up Washington to play a military/law enforcement consultant who takes on a new name and identity with every contract. The character’s name would be John Denzel because in movies it seems guys named John are always referred to by their last names. Like John Shaft, John Rambo, John McClane, John Cliffhanger and the such. I’ve known some guys named John in my life and most people actually call them John. But movies have different rules about stuff like this. This way everybody would just call him Denzel. Maybe they could spell it different and make it John Denzelle or something. I think we’ll get Eva Mendes to play his assistant. She’s been in a couple movies with him and her career is going nowhere so I’m sure she’d be happy for a regular gig as the Moneypenny of the Denzel franchise.

I think they could also maybe add some funny jokes about how Denzel needs to get more creative with his assumed identity’s backstories. We could have Eva tease him and say something like “How many times are you going to be haunted by letting your partner die? Try being haunted by being the victim of massage malpractice for a change!” We could also make jokes about how he always fakes his death at the end of contracts to explain movies like Man on Fire and Fallen.

Denzel could also make some jokes about how much crazy sci-fi shit he sees in his job as a consultant. That serial killer cloning machine in Virtuosity, that past viewer in Déjà vu, Annette Benning as a terrorist-shagging robot in The Siege. We also need jokes about how nice Denzel’s teeth are, maybe have him celebrate the end of every contract with a whitening.

I think this franchise has serious potential and I’m waiting for development funds from Tony Scott. We just need to make the prequel film and then shoot a few additional bookend scenes for his existing films. I’m sure some nice DVD repackaging for all these old films could be worked out and all we need is a theme song, my suggestion would be call Shirley Bassey, she probably could use the work ever since James Bond switched to using grunge songs for his intros.