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.
rating: 4.5
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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.