Movie- American Gangster

[Raziel]

Went to see this today, and I must it was an excellent film. Definetly a must see in theater film

[stingray]

Imagine watching a mobster movie without the Italian mob. That's basically what you'll get when you'll go see American Gangster.

That's a bit like watching a World War II movie without the Japanese or the Germans. If that sounds like being less than satisfying, then that's what you might think American Gangster to be, but surprisingly the movie doesn't turn out to be that bad.

Ok, so the Mafia does get a cameo appearance, but this movie isn't really about them. Why, because this movie is about Blue Magic, the name given to cocaine smuggled directly from Viet Nam, during the time the US troops are fighting it out in the jungles over there.

The mastermind behind this operation is Frank Lucas played ruthlessly by Denzel Washington. I'm faced again with the fact that an actor was cast for a role he isn't really used to playing, or at least I am not used to seeing him play. Denzel isn't playing his usual upbeat and likable character we have come to appreciate. This time around he's a bad SOB. Every time you see him do something and you think to yourself, no he's not going to do it, he just goes and does it. And it works. He didn't pull any punches in this one and I think the movie is a better one for it.

The film also features Russell Crowe as detective Richie Roberts (or whatever his rank is, I didn't really catch that as he's taking an exam during the movie... which he passed, just in case you were wondering... and believe it or not, the obligatory dysfunctional marriage/family is also present.) who only later gets on Frank Lucas' back when he does get promoted to leading a drug enforcement unit. And there we have another problem right there. What happens when you couple two big-name stars in a single movie? If things turn out great you get something like... hmm... Morgan Freeman and Clint Eastwood (Million Dollar Baby), right? Well, here you don't get that because they don't really play off of each other, everyone does his own thing, so what's the point?

By the way I only saw afterwards that the movie was directed by Ridley Scott in the end credits, so I didn't really have any expectations beforehand and I can't really say that he did anything remarkable or memorable with the film that any other director wouldn't have been able to do. The whole movie takes place in Manhattan and all the sets were made to look like the late 60s or early 70s, think Dirty Harry without Clint Eastwood and not in San Francisco.

Anyway, so in the end we are left with a movie that jumps through all the hoops, checks all the right boxes, dots all the i's and crosses all the tee's, but I don't feel like I saw something nearly as gripping as say, the Godfather. At about 150 minutes the movie runs also a little long.

The movie is good, but not great.

7/10

The Good: Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe, Ridley Scott, Cuba Gooding Jr. (yeah, I'm asking myself the same question, I guess he had some bills to pay and they made him an offer he couldn't refuse. My guess, Robin Williams was unavailable.), some tight moments where things heat up, some bad cops (Josh Brolin is great).

The Bad: The actual mob is MIA, the replacement mob isn't very convincing although Armand Assante gets the job somewhat done.

One last thing, is there a shortage of beautiful women? It's almost like they didn't even try in this one....