American Gangster

This was a fantastic movie, but unfortunately, doesn't quite reach the elite status of other gangster movies, namely Goodfellas and the Godfather. I would put this on the level of Casino, a movie that was really enjoyable, but just seemed to be missing something. The one thing that does separate American Gangster from the others of its ilk is that Ridley Scott made this more into a docudrama more closely related to films like Ray and Walk the Line, rather than a new Scarface. Scott really keyed us in on who the main players were and gave us a great character-driven story. Denzel Washington was simply amazing as Frank Lucas, being able to switch from cold-blooded killer to generous family man in the blink of an eye. Russell Crowe, once again, proved his acting chops playing the lead detective that brings Lucas down. The supporting actors were great as well and served as good foils for our lead characters, especially Chiwetel Ejiofor (playing Lucas' brother - also great in Inside Man with Denzel) and Armand Assante (as Dominic Cattano, the mafioso that worked with Lucas). Also, it was nice seeing Cuba Gooding Jr. back in a non-embarrassing movie role along with rappers turned actors, RZA, T.I. and Common turning in solid performances. The one great thing about this flick was that it was not overly violent, which can be a problem for movies dealing with this subject matter (not to say that there wasn't some violence, along with a little gratuitous nudity).

The movie did run a tad too long at about 2 hours and 40 minutes, but it definitely didn't feel like it was that long. I think Scott could have removed a good 25-30 minutes of the runtime, especially the scenes with Crowe's character's divorce proceedings. We understand he is a broken man and we feel sympathy for him, but at the same time, it just seemed unnecessary. On the other hand, the scenes provided us with Carla Gugino and I am not one to ask for her to ever be cut out of a movie. Further, Ridley Scott, along with his brother Tony (Domino, Man on Fire, Deja Vu) is known for his sylistic touches on his movies. Sometimes it can be over the top, especially the club scene in this film that gave me a little bit of a headache, but some of these added touches helped give the movie the feel of being in late 60s, early 70s Harlem. One small thing was towards the end, I believe I saw the boom mike at the top of the frame in a few scenes. Minor quibbles, but nonetheless important to a review.

Overall, this was one of the better movies this year and Denzel and Russell could be up for some hardware come Oscar time.

5.5 out of 6 beers