Penetrating a Character

Rating: Null/10 (10 March 2004)

When you have an intelligent actor like Denzel Washington playing an uneducated character like Trip, you have a performance whereby insights into personality and psyche are unveiled through the portrayal. Denzel, an educated man, has to work hard to speak like an uneducated man in the person of Trip. Trip is a character who has been denied of an education (unlike Denzel) but is not unintelligent. Having spent his life as a slave, it is only when he is recruited into the army that he is furnished with an environment for his intelligence to flourish, thus making Trip an intelligent character who is uneducated. Denzel brings him to life with his own intelligence, endearing him to us in the process.