American Gangster Review

ye… I been off for the last week, school have me stressing… but here I am to give you another review…

 

The movie is done by the director of “Blade Runner” (1982), “G.I. Jane” (1997) and “Gladiator” (2000), aka. Ridley Scott. The movie stars Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe, Chiwetel Ejiofor (the dude from “Four Brothers” (2005), “Inside Man” (2006) and “Children of Men” (2006)), Josh Brolin, and also features T. I. and Common.

This movie follows the true story of Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington), who was Bumpy Johnson’s right hand man, and learned his trade from Bumpy. Bumpy has passed and Frank takes over the business. Frank makes a great move into the drug market by doing the same thing that any legitimate businessman would do, gives the product that his customers demand at the highest quality and the lowest price. Frank calls it “Blue Magic”. On the other end of the spectrum we meet Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe) the most honest of police officers. Richie and his partner one day come upon near one million dollars in a car and they report every dollar of it, and this makes him an outcast from the rest of the corrupt police department, since he cannot be trusted by all of the corrupt. Later on in his career though he is appointed as the head of the narcotics division of his local precinct in New Jersey and the chase begins to catch the man behind “Blue Magic”.

This movie I have to say, did not equate to the amount of hype it has gotten. And I think it is ridiculous that Jay-Z decided to make an “un-official” soundtrack to the movie within like a month or so of seeing the film and releasing it alongside the film. I am yet to hear the album, but I reserve my judgments on that for now. The movie however is pretty good… and one thing I must say…. and I know a lot of people will critique me for saying it… Russell Crowe > Denzel Washington. Crowe was spot on with this movie and he is usually that for any movie I’ve seen him in (“Gladiator” (2000), “A Beautiful Mind” (2001), “Cinderella Man” (2005), “A Good Year” (2006), and “3:10 to Yuma” (2007)), so this is to be expected from him. Denzel did well, but it felt more like Denzel has made a formula for how to act certain roles and he makes few tweaks and just drops it on set and collects the cheque. Russell always brings a certain amount of character depth rather than Denzel who plays this calm and cool gangster who will snap at any moment, so to keep his status cemented in the film as the top dog. While, Russell plays this damaged man, divorced, and struggling to keep some hold onto his family, while all at the same time is the only honest police man in sight that can’t get any advancement because he is honest.

The story was well done, and I guess the story gives you a certain sense of perspective being a true story. The real Frank Lucas was on set during the filming of the movie to help keep the story as true as possible apparently. I definitely liked that they made you understand that gangsters are not people who only plague their communities like all of the movies out there like “The Departed” (2006), “Scarface” (1983), “Goodfellas” (1990), and a lot of others, but they are rather parts of these communities and still try to better them. I liked that Chiwetel Ejiofor featured in this film, I’ve been a decent fan of his work over the last few years, especially in my favourite movie of last year (2006) “Children of Men” where he played Luke, the head of the Phisces; and Common and T.I. had their own moments, T.I. definitely seems to have a future in film, he was decent in “ATL” (2006) and showed okay in this one, Common is another story (stick to rap dude… your amazing there).

Ridley definitely did an average showing for this movie with his direction. I felt more and more like I just happened to be finding out the plot as the movie went along rather than what I love to happen when a director does an amazing job of letting me experience the story and embed it deeply into my brain and make sure that I can never forget the scene/dialogue/acting/ligh

ting/something that just hits me about the movie, and that just didn’t happen with this one. i like Ridley, he did great with “Gladiator” (2000) and “A Good Year” (2006), this one was just not up to his standards.

Overall this movie is a good movie, and you will enjoy it immensely when you see it. However, if your over preparing for this movie, and thinking it will be the second coming of the gangster genre. It won’t do much that others haven’t already, I still think “The Godfather” (1972) and “The Departed” (2006) are the best gangster movies out there. If you looking for the movie to watch now, this is it, but don’t be expecting too much.

IMDB says 8.4/10
Rotten Tomatoes says 79%
I say 8.2/10