Denzel Washington's First Movie Star Performance Came In A Film No One Saw

Time flies when you're observing genius, and for some of us it feels like just yesterday that Denzel Washington was a preposterously talented young actor with a future of untold greatness laid out before him. What would he be? A charmer like Cary Grant, an everyman like James Stewart, or a stalwart like Sidney Poitier? It felt like he could be anything, everything, and, 43 years later, he's delivered on that promise with interest. Denzel Washington is everything: A gentleman, a playboy, a badass, a crusader, a villain, and a bit of a clown. Without fail, he takes your breath away by being the best possible version of whatever it is his character was written to be.

After a rough start with the wrongheaded 1981 racial satire "Carbon Copy," Washington found his footing in a supporting turn with "A Soldier's Story." In 1988, he received his first Academy Award nomination for his portrayal of South African activist Steve Biko in Richard Attenborough's whitey-saves-the-day misfire "Cry Freedom." Disappointing as that film was, Washington was utterly incandescent as a leader of a people who will no longer tolerate living in an Apartheid state. Whatever he did next might be the movie to make him a star.

That film was in the offing, and it wasn't Edward Zwick's "Glory" — though the Civil War drama did earn him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar. True movie stardom wound up being a gradual process for Washington, but it needn't have worked that way. Had there been an ounce of justice in this world, Carl Schenkel's "The Mighty Quinn" would've been the film to launch him into the stratosphere.

If this is the first you're hearing of "The Mighty Quinn," that's not on you. A beleaguered MGM half-heartedly distributed the neo-noir over President's Day in 1989, and, despite rave reviews from Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert (which meant a lot back then), it fizzled out and disappeared from theaters. A film of such quality tended to find its audience through home video and cable back then, but "The Mighty Quinn" never caught on.

So 35 years after its bungled release, this colorful Caribbean thriller starring Washington, Robert Townsend, and Mimi Rogers is ripe for rediscovery. Why should you bother? Pretend it's 1989, and all you know of Washington is "Carbon Copy," "A Soldier's Story," and "Cry Freedom." You happen across this stylish thriller on HBO and see Washington, in the opening scene, suavely take down a knife-wielding assailant with a spin kick and a smile. Then, like the James Bond we deserved and never got, he struts over to his woman who's been watching him ply his sexily lethal trade. This ludicrously handsome devil keeps grinning because he knows he's got it like that. He's Chief Inspector Xavier Quinn, and he's the law on this Caribbean island.

Quinn falls prey to hubris, and bottoms out in front of a community that trusts him to fight for them, but we've got a feeling about this guy and we've definitely got a feeling about Washington. He's going to come through. It's a rare feel-good film noir, and those vibes are off the charts when Washington is sharing the screen with Rogers' femme fatale. This film's time is long overdue.

We spoke more about "The Mighty Quinn" on today's episode of the /Film Daily podcast, where we ranked our Top 5 Denzel Washington performances:

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