American Gangster is one of the best Ridley Scott movies ever.
American Gangster is on a different level to the movie Martin Scorsese won an Oscar for last year.
American Gangster is nearly the best film of 2007…
I love this movie. Last year when I spoke about The Departed (my favourite film of last year), I said that it wasn’t the best film of Scorsese’s great career but I said it was probably the most entertaining 3 hours he had ever contributed to film.
Well imagine something of the opposite with American Gangster. There’s no gimmicks in this one, no outrageous dialogue, no larger than like Jack Nicholson’s, no ‘I’m sleeping with your girlfriend’ sub-plots, or huge action set pieces. Although I did love all that in The Departed.
This one is kinda on the same level as Fincher’s Zodiac. It’s mostly played straight with a cold feeling from Scott as the 60’s and 70’s colour scheme (the same cinematographer from Fincher’s film is here too) and the atmosphere invite us to watch the great character work of the two leads, Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe.
It’s character work we haven’t seen as strongly in this type of movie since the 70’s with The French Connection or even The Godfather.
Washington gives the performance of his career as Frank Lucas, the infamous drug lord of 70’s Harlem, a villain role we haven’t seen him take on since Training Day in 2001. It’s almost reminiscent of some of the themes of the 2004 movie Layer Cake in that there are different layers to this organisation and when Washington see’s his mentor die, he takes over the business and is the next layer to carry on the morals and ideas for success. It’s absolutely fascinating to see Lucas’ rise to the top of Harlem and when you see him mid way through the movie go all intense but then follow up with an emotional family scene, you can’t help but be drawn in by him but be fucking terrified at the same time.
On the other end of the scale is Russell Crowe, the obsessed cop who tries to take him down and for once, Crowe gives a quieter performance and almost intentionally takes a back seat to Washington. This isn’t 3:10 to Yuma where he eats up every scene he is in, this an understated performance allowing the enigma of Washington as Lucas to grow with each scene.
The movie is basically about two sides of the coin. Washington is successful with his family life and puts that first and rises to the top of his stature by a ruthless code of corrupt and menacning ethics, whilst Crowe plays the game the right way with hard work and sense of right and wrong (he handed in to the police department an unmarked case of a million dollars!) but is hopeless at home, and is going through a divorce and fighting over custody with his son.
Two people with two different values, who of course will come together eventually but it’s built up and built up in a smart screenplay from Steve Zaillian, his best written work since Schlinder’s List. The big confrontation between the two leads is reminiscent of the one between Robert De Niro and Al Pacino in Heat or on a slightly different level the meeting between Joseph Cotton and Orson Welles in The Third Man.
Just like the supporting cast in The Departed, there’s great roles here for actors like James Brolin (who plays a snifty cop) and John Ortiz (Crowe’s partner) but it’s the Lucas family that comprises of stellar turns from Chiwetel Ejiofor, Common and even RZA that make the movie what it is. There’s a clear family bond here in the Lucas family, who love, respect and are scared of their leader all with equal measure.
So what stopped this extremely smart movie from being the best movie of the year?
Well it’s not quite as satisfying as 3:10 to Yuma or The Bourne Ultimatum. I don’t think it reaches the targets that either of those movies set out and I think the unnecessary sub-plots of Crowe’s personal relationship with his wife (Carla Guigno has a blink or you miss it role) was distracting and felt like it was only put in there to give Crowe something else to do. Which is completely unnecessary and Scott should have watched Chinatown to see that a lead character doesn’t need that type of thing.
And sadly the ending was not as smart as the screenplay that had built towards it (there’s a 2002 movie from a great director that added one extra scene at the end, which this film so badly needed, but I won’t spoil that for anyone) but still this is fantastic work from Ridley Scott whose had a couple of mis-fires recently and it’s just great…pure… storytelling.
With Zodiac, The Bourne Ultimatum, 3:10 to Yuma there does seem to be a movement into bringing back movies that don’t pander with the audience and just tell some great stories… and I couldn’t be more supportive of it.
American Gangster covers very little new ground in the gangster genre but it does all the old good bits well and is given to us by a superb director in a slow-building and easy to follow way. It’s almost like a classic ‘post-modern’ gangster flick, a movie about a genre… and the elusive search for happiness and the American dream. What lengths would we go to be happy in life… and is money, fame, good morals or our family the thing we should strive for?
Infact it’s almost a Tarantino movie… in that it uses themes and ideas from a million other movies from the same genre. But I like Tarantino… and I love this movie. Watch out for the song from Jackie Brown too, I thought Quentin owned that song but after seeing what Scott did with it I’m not so sure.
8 Comments
Well, as long as he doesn’t play anything law-abiding or too dignified, then a black actor can get the Oscar. Beware though because for a black actor to deviate from that is jepardize one’s career.
Harrison Ford’s played NOTHING but squeaky clean good guys, and never once has he been criticized. Ditto for Clint Eastwood, George Clooney, Tom Selleck or Brad Pitt.
So why does Denzel the only one to repeatedly singled out with these fraudulent accuations of being “too clean-cut” or “never deviating from his immacualte persona?” If he plays a stereotypical black thug then it’s some sort of wonderful thing, really brave and bold of him (yeah, because as we all know it’s the rarest thing in the world to see a black drug dealer, criminal, corrupt cop shown in movies) but he plays something respectable, and it’s so disappointing and bland? Get real!
A concerned father fighting to make a future for himself and his son (Pursuit of Happyness) “not deep enough”; a man striving to keep his honor while investigating a gross atrocity in the middle of war (Courage Under Fire) “too cliche.” A jaded cop learning to not give up on a degenrating world, even while investigating the most degenrate scrime-spree of his career (SE7EN) “been done before.”
On the other hand: a slave, a drug-dealing corrupt cop, a dictator or a dim-witted boxing assistant? Here’s your Oscar Messrs Washington, Whitaker and Freeman!
Blacks always object to the way the Academy treats blacks in cinema, and when 3-6 Mafia got an Oscar, that was AMPAS’s way of giving all blacks the finger. “You want to make us give blacks get an Oscar so badly? OK, how about this! Har-har-har!!”
The Academy Awards are a joke and a disgrace! Getting one is NOT an honor and the people in charge of it should be beaten to within an inch of their pathetic lives -perferably by all the good folks they’ve snubbed over the decades.
And BTW Malcolm-X was the performace of Denzel’s career. He’d never done anything like it before and will likely never surpass it.
Especially not with crap like this being thrown his way by people who apprarently drool at the mouth for the chance to see him play something that apparently they’re more comfortable with.
There’s got to be some clinical medical term for people like that.
Thanks Jay for taking the words out of my mouth. Im over denzel and the whole 3-6 thing was a joke. Remember their song “Slob on my Knob”, “Ass and Titties”, and “Sippin on sum Sizzurp”? Yep that list deserves Oscars Emmy’s, Grammy’s, hell give em a Tony too.
Though I have to agree with Jay Smack’s views on a racist Oscar board. The MOVIE AMERICAN GANGSTER is what we should be talking about. I, like Matt, enjoyed this film. Its pace felt never got bogged down even though this movie lacks the crazy action scenes in Departed. Matt’s best line was how this movie is similar to another incredible film Layer Cake. The duel story techinique is kinda boring to me most of the time but Denzel’s performance alone is a selling point. And Russell Crowe does a great job of keeping his character low key because its not called American Cop its American Gangster.
Now some things that didn’t really work – Frank Lucas could NOT read or count. In fact the irony of Frank Lucas is here is a VERY poor country boy who barely get a job at a McDonald’s is “adopted” by Bumpy Johnson. Johnson taught Frank the game and when Bumpy passed. Frank’s ruthless manner got him power. The film doesn’t showcase that relationship.
Also some other lacking elements Frank’s childhood (one line talks about the horrific event in which Frank saw his cousin taken from his home, beaten, and lynched in front of the Lucas home in North Carolina). This movie is a GOOD to GREAT FILM, though it really doesn’t tell the TRUE story. And why the hell is CUBA GOODING JR. BARELY IN THIS FILM. HE plays one of the most notorious flashy drug dealers in NYC HISTORY. Barnes was a wild character. And to only have one meaningless confrontation between Denzel and Cuba was A SAD NOTE. Hell Frank Lucas didn’t get along with all his brothers. He PUT A HIT OUT ON ONE OF THEM.
Ridley Scott did a good job in a film that had some many stories and tales to it that it would need a full trilogy (ala Godfather) to tell the whole story.
But I highly recommend this movie.
denzel gives a truly great performance that would garner oscar attention for any actor regardless of their race. the movie was absolutely spot-on. after watching it i couldnt think of one thing i didnt like or that could have been done better. i know some people were disappointed because it was supposed to be the black scarface and end with him going out shooting, but HELLO! this is based on a true story!! i love how the audience never really knows how to respond to frank lucas. on one hand he is a cold-blooded killer who will do anything to get ahead, and on the other hand you kind of root for him because his personal relationships help you look past all the evil he commits. i would give this movie 5 stars and can almost guarantee that denzel will get the oscar for this role.
I see nothing wrong with Washington playing Crooks. Crooks are people who have great stories to be told and Washington plays a great crook. Should he have won the award for “X” damn right, but hey it did not work out like that. Denzel does not act for awards he acts to make great films. Just enjoy the movies and turn off the Oscars.
This film was shocking but not because of the violence. It was the complete mis-representation of the black community living in Harlem. The communities living in harlem are experiencing difficult times at the moment with big corporations trying to split them up so that they can build luxury apartments for rich people. This film only shows black people as drug taking scumbags when in fact Harlem is made up of very close family communities. Shame on the makers of this film for giving such a negitive representation.
Listen this movie was so beautifully directed balance everything. I mean in all fairness for No cUntry for gay men. And there will be Shit this movie (American Gangster) was amazing. It deserved the oscars it didnt get easely. It was not fair because it didnt even get nominated for some reason. Just because the other movies from tht year had some artsy shit in it. It was better then Departed (even though that movie also was amazing.) And it was the most realistic Gangster movie since Goodfellas. Its no fair the way it was treated in the min of the half or fully retarded academy.
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