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Rating:  -
I was told American Gangster was an epic gangster movie in the tradition of the Godfather. Nothing of the kind. Instead it is another cliched and mediocre urban gangsta flick.
Rating:  -
It's Harlem, 1968, and "Bumpy" Johnson is speaking to his driver and right-hand man Frank Lucas (the amazing Denzel Washington). Bumpy laments the loss of the middleman in business, the jobs lost to overseas companies, the end of the era of the working man. When Bumpy dies and Frank takes over, he omits the middleman too and purchases his heroin directly from Bangkok and ships it via military aircraft through Vietnam to the US. Frank is on his way up, and he doesn't let anyone stand in his way, even those who think now that Bumpy is dead, so is his business.
Detective Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe) is an honest cop who's taking night classes to become a lawyer. He's well aware of how corrupt the Drug Enforcement Division is, the police taking busted dope from evidence, cutting it, and reselling it on the streets. Richie and his partner find $1M in the trunk of a dealer's car, and against his partner's warning they turn in the money. Now they can't get backup and the other cops won't work with them because they can't trust honest cops.
While Frank represents The American Dream (even if it's the wrong dream) by being a gentleman, a good family man who loves his mother, his wife, and America, Richie the honest cop is a failure at his marriage, a womanizer, and a absent father to his son.
Frank's on top of the world, until an innocent gift from his wife begins his decline. Always counseling his brothers not to dress flashy and attract attention, he makes the mistake of wearing the showy, fifty thousand dollar chinchilla coat and hat his wife gave him to a boxing match. Sitting in better seats than the Italians, shaking hands with Joe Lewis, and standing out like a sore thumb, he catches the attention of Richie, who's heading a task force to nail all the big time drug players. The cops are onto Frank now, both the good ones and the bad ones. Frank is exposed, and his world is about to change.
Though based on a true story, I've never heard of the case so I can't comment on how close to reality the film came. The movie starts slow, and is kind of hard to get into. Keep watching, the movie comes together and the pace quickens. It's a movie where you'll find yourself rooting for the bad guy even though you shouldn't, because Frank seems like such a nice guy (except when he's shooting people). It's also a movie you'll want to view again, to catch all the nuances in the relationships. On a personal note, I liked all the old cars they found to use in the movie, not one car was outside the time frame. This review is based on the Unrated Extended Version, not the theatrical version. Rent first, then buy. Enjoy!
Rating:  -
In "American Gangster," Denzel Washington stars as Frank Lucas, a 1960's Black mafioso, a "made" man who seizes and maintains an iron-fisted control of various Harlem rackets, including the most profitable of all--drug trafficking. Lucas' old-world emphasis on loyalty and ruthlessness rivals that of any of his Italian counterparts. However intriguing, it's a story line that is nevertheless tired and all too familiar. The movie never really takes flight. Indeed, the film not only suffers from an overly-familiar plot, but also cinematography that is sometimes drab and colorless. "American Gangster" is further undermined by the disingenuous premise that Black people were somehow better off being exploited and victimized by Black drug lords and Black racketeers than by Whites. As such, this is one of the most distasteful parables of American capatalism.
While "American Gangster" is suffused with the requisite "family ties," grisly killings, duplicitous associates, cops on the make and other betrayals, it may be that we've seen too many better-made mafia movies. After all, how could any such movie match the incomparable "Godfather" films? Director Ridley Scott, Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe are among the most gifted and imaginative practitioners around, but in the end, even they can't shore up an exceedingly long and slow-paced movie like "American Gangster," which finally buckles under the weight of its own grandiosity.
Rating: -
Version: U.S.A / Region A, B, C
VC-1 BD-50 / Advanced Profile 3 / U-Control (Advanced Profile 2)
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Disc size: 48,70 GB
DTS-HD Master Audio English 4010 kbps 5.1 / 48kHz / 24-bit / 3934kbps (DTS Core: 5.1 / 48kHz / 24-bit / 1536kbps)
DTS Audio French 768 kbps 5.1 / 48kHz / 24-bit / 768kbps
Dolby Digital Audio English 192 kbps 2.0 / 48kHz / 192kbps
DTS Express English 192 kbps 2.0 / 48kHz / 192kbps
Subtitles: English SDH / French / Spanish
Theatrical cut
Running time: 2:36:57
Movie size: 31,11 GB
Average video bit rate: 18.59 Mbps
Number of chapters: 20
Extended cut
Running time: 2:55:45
Movie size: 35,02 GB
Average video bit rate: 18.72 Mbps
Number of chapters: 20
#Audio Commentary
#Deleted Scenes (SD - 12 minutes)
#Documentary: Fallen Empire: Making American Gangster (SD - 80 minutes)
#Featurette: The Real Frank Lucas and Richie Roberts (SD - 5 minutes)
#TV Specials (SD - 42 minutes)
#Music Videos (SD)
#U-Control - Bonus View
#MyScenes
Rating:  -
On another film I reviewed on Amazon, I said that I only follow directors and not actors. Here, I'll make two strong exceptions. But, first let me digress a moment to applaud Mr. Scott for yet another great film. There are directors who I look upon as the infrastructure--the superhighways--on today's movie landscape. Spielberg, Cameron, Scorsese, Scott (Tony), Lynne, Tarantino, Greengrass, Nolan, Greenaway, Tykwer, Verhoeven, Noe, Amoldavar, Jackson, Inarritu, Anno, Lee--when I see these names attached to any movie, I automatically know that the movie's going to at least be decent, if not, damn good. If Hollywood had a Mount Rushmore, Ridley Scott's image--and those of his contemporaries--should be deeply etched one stratum below the immortal images of Hitcock, Fellini, Bergman, Lang, Coppola, Powell, Kubrick, Kurosawa, etc. From BladeRunner, to Alien, to Gladiator, and now American Gangster, Ridley Scott's canon of films are among the best films ever.
Now, to my two exceptions: First, Denzel Washington. The man ages like wine. Like DeNiro or Clint Eastwood, Washington is a ticket pull all by himself. His presence and machismo overpowers the screen. He makes a bad movie watchable. In fact, I can't recall the last bad movie he starred in, which speaks a lot of his intelligence in selecting quality scripts.
Secondly, there's Russell Crowe. Like Denzel, Russell Crowe is a man's man in every role he plays, whether he's playing good-guy or bad-guy it doesn't matter. He proves that the leading man doesn't have to be Brad-Pitt-pretty-boy to be a Hollywood leading man. Russell's got the kind of durable rugged looks and powerful rottweiler build you're likely to see on some guy in the middle of the road driving a jackhammer through the pavement. Or the kind of guy you'd envision out on probation--the kind of guy you wouldn't want to see at night in a dark alley. Like Denzel, Russell can carry a movie on his back, and also like Denzel, Russell knows how to select quality scripts.
American Gangster is the story of Frank Lucas and his rise to the pinnacle of Harlem's organized crime world. Under the tutelage of his ailing mentor, Ellsworth Bumpy Johnson, Frank Lucas foresees the end of the old model of organized crime based on middlemen, exaggerated profits, and diluted product. Young Lucas is Johnson's personal driver and sole protégé. Following Johnson's death, Harlem's drug scene washes into a violent free-for-all with up and comers battling to succeed Bumpy as Harlem's kingpin. Meanwhile, Frank Lucas is aloof. Even before Bumpy's death, Frank had been quietly formulating his own schemes for life and crime AFTER ol' Bump, who'd constantly lament about the good old days of customer service, middlemen, and respect among thieves. Bumpy's death frees Frank to do business a different way.
He disrupts the monopoly of the New York Italian Mafia. Frank personally flies to Asia and establishes a direct link to smuggle heroin into the U.S. He enlists a distant cousin, U.S. Army sergeant Leslie "Ike" Atkinson, to transport his dope into the U.S. inside the coffins of dead soldiers. With no middlemen, Frank's dope, called Blue Magic, is 100% pure on the streets of Harlem. Frank organizes his immediate family and cousins in ancillary posts--or fronts--throughout his drug network, from processing, measuring, and packaging, to receiving and distribution. Because Frank carries himself conservative and low-key, he's able to avoid the cops.
Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe) is a persistent New Jersey Cop determined to find out who's taken over Bumpy's turf. For a while, Frank is invisible. Then, one night he makes a big mistake. He shows up at an Ali fight in full regalia, draped from head to toe in mink and chinchilla, and festooned in diamonds and gold. He's shaking hands with the movie stars, the boxers, and the Mafia figures. Richie Roberts spies all of this from a distance through his binoculars--now the cops know who has taken over Bumpy's turf.
Richie, however, has his own problems; he's a poor and honest cop. Discovering almost one-million dollars in the trunk of a car, Richie does the wrong thing and turns in the money without divvying it up with the force. His wife is leaving him because he makes peanuts as an honest cop.
Both Richie and Frank are opposite sides of a coin: want of money disrupts Richie's life; wealth is not enough to prevent Frank's marriage and family from disintegrating. Richie's on the right side of the law, and Frank's on the wrong side of the law. Both lose everything.
From the music, the sets, the cars, and the costumes, American Gangster is solid entertainment all the way.
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