You named John Q. and The Bone Collector and those are the ones that immediately comes to mind, though it's really kind of hard to fault him for stuff like that since he's got a really good track record of helping movies that could very well be replaceable thrillers into genuinely excellent movies. Apparently "Fallen" didn't get great reviews, but I loved that film and he's a huge part of why it was so enjoyable for me. So if Denzel Washington thinks "Fallen" was good and he had fun (and got paid well) to make it, then I can't think of a good reason why he would turn down things like John Q. - which has a really good cast and *should* have been better than it was.

I don't know. Maybe that's not a clear way of putting it. But I think your question identifies what's so cool about his career, which is that he's been kind of a legend for 2-3 decades now and even though he's slowing down a little bit now that he's 68, he hasn't spent most of that legendary time waiting around for CINEMA! but seems confident enough in his ability that he'll take jobs that seem fun, with directors that he likes, and turn them into much, much better films than they had any right to be.

So if I'm gonna say "some of those thrillers were a bit of a waste of Denzel Washington" then I also need to acknowledge that for any time that happens, there are three movies like Pelican Brief or Unstoppable or the absolutely unassailable Devil in a Blue Dress that, while they didn't *need* Denzel Washington, thank god they got Denzel Washington because that's what made them awesome. I'll sit through the occasional Bone Collector to make that happen.

Though now that I said all that, I'll also throw out that even though it was a pretty good film, we didn't need a remake of the Manchurian Candidate.

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"Walleye, a lot of things are going to go wrong in your life that technically aren't your fault. Always remember that this doesn't make you any less of an idiot"

--Walleye's Dad