American Gangster - As American as Apple Pie

Gun. Drugs. Blood. Money. Power.

Greeks and Russians have their tragedies. This is the recipe for the truly American tragedy.

First, the movie is 2 hours and 40 minutes long, which in ADD years, that translates into two weeks. However, director Ridley Scott does a pretty decent job of moving things along, sometimes a little slow, other times not slow enough. But Ridley proves again that he is the master of intense/suspense without having to use slow motion.

Denzel stars as Frank Lucas, the man who put the scourge on Harlem with his pure heroin brought in from Thailand. By going straight to the source, Frank cuts out the middle man and can sell a better product at a lower price. And the crooked cops and Mafia aren't too enthused about this.

Russel Crowe plays Richie Roberts, a tough-as-nails cop, studying to be a lawyer, who happens to be an honest cop - this last trait evoked at the beginning of the movie when he turned in nearly 1 million dollars of evidence instead of keeping it all for his partner and himself. He has family issues and friend issues (the godfather of his son is a crime boss's nephew) and now no cop trusts him because he isn't on the take.

And thus the movie takes us on a collision course with these two. Denzel does a fantastic job at being at once charismatic, charming, and lovable, while at the same time, ruthless and brutal. Every time he was on screen I was on the edge of my seat waiting for him to explode into rage, which he does more than a few times, smashing heads in pianos, blowing a man's head off on a public street.

Crowe does a decent job at playing what has now become a cliched character. The problem is, there are dozens of actors who could have played this part, mostly because there isn't a lot of depth. Oh, they try to get some depth and scope of Richie Roberts, but by going back and forth between Frank and Richie, it does not allow a full story arc for Richie to ever develop. And so, we are left with perfunctory scenes which don't add much to his characterization and take away from the flow of the movie. Likewise, there are a few characters and bit story lines in Franks story arc that are superfluous. Cut out these points, and the movie could be roughly 2 hours of a quite possibly brilliant film.

For example, there is a phenomenal scene where we see Frank Lucas and his wealth and comfort interposed with several shots of junkies hooked on his product, overdosing with weeping children on their lifeless bodies, unconscious on a filthy, cold bathroom floor. It was brilliant. It was powerful. It was the dichotomy that was missing throughout most of the film.

Overall, I didn't waste my money (funny side note, since I was a little late, the movie was sold out, so I bought a ticket to Bee Movie and went into American Gangster anyway. Someone was saving me a seat). This was a very good film. Denzel's performance was worth the price of admission. I just wish they would have cast a much hotter girl to play his wife.