American Gangster

American Gangster (2007)
Directed by Ridley Scott
***

Disappointing
I was ready to love this movie. I love Denzel. I love Russell. I like Ridley, from time to time. However, within the first 30 seconds, I knew something was wrong. This film didn't seem to realize that Goodfellas-style violence is passé in film today; in fact, even Scorcese has moved away from it because audiences have (fortunately) become more sophisticated. The film also didn't seem to notice most of the major developments in scriptwriting over the past decade. Very, very quickly — much too quickly — the film felt like a recycle of a number of far more successful films, like The French Connection, Goodfellas, Serpico, Traffic. And American Gangster never even rose to the level of homage. It has its moments, to be sure, but the only thing giving this film any value is the curiosity of its real-life tale.

Trashy
Even if the script were brilliant (which it's not), this script is the trashiest I've seen since the mid-90s. A man gets lit on fire and then shot — with no point, explanation or even fanfare. Another gets his head stuck in a piano and beat with the piano lid — again, a shocking act of violence as senseless as a drive-by and simply thrown in for effect. A Vietnamese club has a line of girls gyrating onstage. Just background, sure, but ham-fisted for any film with pretentions to greatness today.

Now, this sort of trashy filler (i.e., it has nothing to do with the plot) used to be commonplace back during that unfortunate era in film known as the 80s and early 90s. But filmgoers have gotten with it. This sort of thing is silly anymore. Violence or sexuality has to be meaningful, or plot-advancing, or at least stylish, for crying out loud. But here it sinks the plot back to the days of Joe Pesci with a baseball bat. If violence or sexuality is important to a story, if it implicates a character or even just shades him, then sell us on it! Sell us! Don't just throw it in because that's the way scripts were always put together back in the 80s.

Interesting at times, but flawed overall
This is an interesting story. It's got interesting characters. The first African-American crime lord. A cop who won't do any wrong — at least not in his day job. Unfortunately, I got the sense that either the poor script and/or the directing constrained these guys. Denzel seemed to be giving us his deadpan Man on Fire look most of the film, punctuating it with muted Training Day outbursts from time to time. Russell Crowe, on the other hand, seemed determined to channel the spirit of Jeffrey Wigand and it made his potentially complicated character just a mere uninteresting instead.

From the way-way-too-large cast that Ridley assembled, only a couple others are compelling at all in their roles. Ruby Dee, nominated for her role as Denzel's spirited, elderly and ultimately grieved mother. Chiwetel Ejiofor, always so good that he's at least enjoyable, as Denzel's younger brother. Josh Brolin as the Nick Nolte look-alike NYC cop who skims a little off the top wherever he can. The others are painful, and I hate to say it, but there are many, many scenes that should have been cut from this whale of a film because they add nothing and even edge over into the boring category.

Shoulda been a contender
This is a film about the mafia, even though the drug-running gang would have never liked an Italian name for themselves. Frank Lucas (Denzel) took advantage of the rampant heroin addiction that US soldiers got into in Vietnam, and set up an Army transport to ship kilos back to the US. Meanwhile, Detective Richie Roberts (Russell) is going to night school to become a lawyer while, during the day, doing his best as a street cop and avoiding his department who can't understand why he turned in almost a million dollars that he found on the job. Lucas, the bad guy, is consistent, respected, generous with his family. Richie is wishy-washy, an outcast, fighting weakly for custody of his child.

This could have been good. It's worthwhile to hold it up next to another mafia film from 2007, Eastern Promises, which beats the beans out of this one on almost every front. That film had a dynamite script where every bit of dialogue counts, where every scene means something, where every actor is boosted to greatness by the strength of being a compelling character in a compelling script. Surprisingly, American Gangster has gotten generally good reviews. So I'm swimming upstream critically here. Like any critic who tries to be honest and fair, I'll experience this from time to time — a serious difference of opinion with the critical establishment. Should you watch American Gangster? Your call. Is it any good? Not really.

Comments

[Jordan Poss]

Good review. I was rather put off by some of the trashy content myself (not to mention completely undone by all the injection close-ups; why do the have to show that?), but in the end I decided that it was a calculated effort at ugliness to show the awful world in which Lucas and his ilk worked. Compare the montage of overdose deaths.

And I agree that Washington wasn't at the top of his game in this movie, though I did like Crowe.

I mentioned on my Facebook review that I've found out that Richie Roberts's custody battle and enthusiastic philandering are figments of screenwriter Zaillian's imagination. What do you make of their inclusion?