[Movie] American Ganster Reviews....

[Emperor]

I am not a huge fan of Ridley Scott, or Russell Crowe or Denzel Washington. I think they can be very good, but more often than not, i am either not overly impressed with what they do, or just annoyed with them. I think Ridley has made some amazing movies that are visually stunning and have great stories and he has also made movies that just fall flat. I give him credit with at least trying new and different things, and for that i appreciate him. I think Russell peaked with LA Confidential and from then on he's pretty much annoyed me. I don't find him all the special or "intense" or interesting of an actor. i think he turns on the machismo way too much and overdoes it most of the time. I liked him in LA Condfidential because he was something new and that brand of intensity fit the story perfectly. As for Denzel, when he is on his game he is truly great. there are a handful of movies that he has made where he was perfect (glory, malcolm x) but usually i find that he has a denzel schtick that i don't find compelling (i haven't seen training day but i hear this is one of his better performances).

 

With that said, i think American Gangster is flat out the best gangster movie since goodfellas. ok, let the "plant" calling begin because i flat out loved this movie. the three principles here have performed at the top of their game. ridley made a beautiful nyc/nj movie. he did a great job of showing the grit and grime of the late '60s / early 70s while never doing any "postcard" shots. at the same time he kept the story moving showing the rise of Frank Lucas and his eventual, inevitable fall.

 

Russell was very quiet and subdued throughout the movie. his character is an "honest" cop whose childhood roots are most probably of the unsavory kind. his high school friends are criminals. He is a cop who is finishing law school so that he can further better himself and distance himself from where he came from. he reminds me a lot of a firefighter friend of mine (who survived 9/11) who after that terrible day retired from the department and went to law school so that he could better his mind and provide for his family in a safe way. ridley and russell were very smart in making this character a flawed one who, while an honest cop, is a dishonest husband and negligent father.

 

Denzel did not do his schtick, except for one scene where he seemingly tries to ape pacino from godfather 3. other than his "they tried to kill my wife" chest thump, i thought denzel was picture perfect. there are hints of his Malcolm X pimp walk which i enjoyed seeing. frank lucas is a quiet, unassuming man who learns a lot from his mentor and eventually takes that knowledge and builds himself an empire, making enemies of other drug lords and dirty cops. from the opening scene we know this is not a typical denzel character and that he is not to be fucked with. that scene grabs the audience by the balls and tells us to hold on for an exciting ride.

 

special mention must be given to steven zallian who, yet again, wrote a smart screenplay. the main characters are well developed; there are gangster cliches that are alluded to never fully developed. that is a good thing. an example is a big showdown occurring while frank is at church. obviously this is reminiscing of godfather 1, but the filmmakers were smart enough not to try to redo or outdo the original. instead they did their own thing which worked well in its own rights. zallian was also smart enough to leave some things that are to be read between the lines. i liked that not everything is spoonfed and you have to piece some things together yourself. also i loved the fact that this is not a cat and mouse movie like heat. the bad guy and the cop don't meet until the bad guy is arrested by the cop. we watch russell put together his case while at the same time we watch denzel grow his operation until it becomes too big for the anonymity he so desires.

 

special mention #2 must be given to josh brolin. this guy has been in 3 of the best movies this year. in planet terror he is a slimy asshole. in no country for old men he is a guy obsessed with money. and in american gangster he is a slimy crooked cop obsessed with money. this may not seem like much of a range but the subtelties in each performance are such that each character has different degrees of sliminess and greed to them. of the three my favorite performance of his is NCFOM which i think is the #1 movie of the year (followed closely by Into the Wild).

 

i would definitely put American Gangster in my top 5 of the year. i'm sure many, if not most of you will thoroughly enjoy this movie.

 

 

 

 

[Emperor]

Another one will possible small spoilers to plot:

 

 

 

Denzel Washington gives one of his best performances in years as Frank Lucas. At the beginning of the film he is a small time gangster and bodyguard to a larger crime boss in Harlem. When that boss dies, Frank sees his chance to rise up. He sees that the future is heroin and with the help of a friend stationed overseas, he goes to Bangkok to place a very large order with all the money he has. On his return he starts selling the drugs, which are twice as good as the rest of the drugs found in New York, at half the price as the competition. In no time he’s a millionaire and brings up his whole family from the south to join his own version of the Italian mafia.

 

Meanwhile, Russell Crowe is Richie Roberts, seemingly the only honest detective in New Jersey. Not that he’s not tempted from time to time. There’s a great scene early on when he and his partner find a million dollars in drug money. He realizes that if he should keep it just because that’s what cops do. If he reports it there won’t be a single man on the force who will ever trust him again. Sure enough, he turns in the cash and suddenly when he starts calling for backup there’s never any cars that are in his area and able to help him. When he starts to notice an increase in the number of heroin overdoses he starts to get curious about where this new drug is coming from and starts to investigate the usual suspects.

 

What also helps to make the film so interesting is the amazing actors that are in it throughout. The incredible cast includes John Ortiz, Armand Assante, Ruby Dee, Roger Bart, Josh Brolin, Ted Levine, Carla Gugino, Jon Polito, RZA, John Hawks, Cuba Gooding Jr., and Chiwetel Ejiofor, who seems to be in every other movie these days but is always a welcomed addition. A lot of these character actors have been MIA for a while but all give stellar performances with even the smaller characters leaving a strong impression, with one of the small exceptions being Cuba Gooding Jr., who is barely seen in the film in spite of all the hype of him returning to serious acting in serious films. The best work from these actors probably comes from Assante, Ortiz, Dee, and Brolin, who is even better in “No Country For Old Men.”

 

For a while, the movie does an excellent job of showing us these two very different men without ever drawing parallels and connections to each other. Frank and Richie don’t even know that the other exists until 80 minutes into the film. This really works in the film’s favor. We don’t need to see the detective obsessed with catching his man or the criminal trying to do business while being hunted. Instead we get to know them while interacting with their own environment, rather than invading each others’. This, sadly though, also ends up hurting the film a bit. Each character has some great scenes and side stories that help develop their characters, some of the best being Crowe’s drug addict partner and custody battle with his ex wife, and Washington’s relationship with his family. However, once the movie does turn into a cat and mouse story, it almost makes some of the unrelated scenes feel like extra filler that had no effect on what the movie was telling me was the real story. It’s weird, I have complained so much in the past about movies that don’t offer any character development and this almost suffers from too much. I think it’s because I almost preferred these scenes to the actual story of the movie and I would have rather just spent time with them alone then see the two characters brought together.

 

Of the two leads, Crowe was by far my favorite. He seems to say so much, sometimes without saying a word. Just after a few scenes with him you know exactly what his character is all about. Washington is also excellent and probably more likely to attract award attention for his performance, but his character was a little more generic and less defined, yet also too much of a mystery. Frank is supposed to be a terrifying and respected person, but we never truly understand why or how he accomplishes this. There is one great, shocking scene with the awesome Idris Elba (Stringer Bell on “The Wire”) where Frank shows his family and workers just how extreme he can be, but once this happens we get too much of him acting like the king of New York but never really doing anything other than sitting in his house waiting for the drug money to roll in. This is where the film turns a bit more into DePalma’s “Scarface,” which is why it lost me a bit. Frank often talks about how he has all this wisdom and experience but never explains what that is. There is one moment where he mentions to his girlfriend that his mentor taught him a lot of things. “Like what?” she asks. The movie then cuts to Denzel shooting someone in the head. “About Life,” he responds. There are a few other odd Ridley Scott cuts and montages like that, which don’t always work, especially the one that comes at Thanksgiving in which we are shown the parallel between how rich and comfortable Frank is compared to his customers who are living in slums and overdosing, but it’s really just about all we ever see of the drug users in the film so they’re not really there long enough to make an impression.

 

But for the most part, Scott’s direction is great and inventive. He balances the quiet scenes with intense and chaotic ones with ease. One raid scene near the end was especially well staged. The subtle 70’s era is captured very well, without ever feeling like we’re being forced a period piece with funky costumes and cars everywhere you look. With the recent “Zodiac” and the BBC show “Life on Mars,” I’ve really discovered that police procedural material is a lot more interesting to watch when all of the modern conveniences are taken away. I must say that I prefer “Zodiac” a great deal to “American Gangster,” but despite my complaints, I did enjoy quite a bit of this film, and it seemed that most of the people in the theatre either loved or liked the film, except for my friend sitting next to me who hated it.

 

This is not the best film I’ve seen this year but I do recommend it for the performances and for what at times feels like a fresh take on the crime movie. The rest of the time… well at least you won’t be bored.