Cranky's Flickershow Reviews
By Neil Richter
Street Economics 101
Ridley
Scott's American Gangster is one
of those movies where you can see every dollar that was spent on it up on the
screen. In addition to the pair of
A-listers heading up the cast, every nook and cranny of this film is splashed
with period detail. This isn't the
overblown 70's of Austin Powers,
but a cannily crafted look at the Vietnam era that offers a window to the past
while drawing plenty of comparisons to the present (The connections between the
lead character's crime syndicate and modern-day corporate warfare aren't
subtle). From the dirty, cluttered
offices of the workaday detectives to the slick nightclubs frequented by
Harlem's criminal elite, American Gangster oozes atmosphere. Though
I was indeed impressed with this aspect of the film, I expected nothing
less. After all, Ridley Scott is
one of the most lauded commercial filmmakers out there, with such hits under
his belt as Alien, Bladerunner, and Thelma and Louise. Here, he
doesn't quite achieve the heights reached by those films, but he does enough to
raise the material above the inherent cliches that lie within it. As was stated, a great deal of this is
due to the film's sense of visual style.
Scott's camera resists hyperactivity for the most part. Instead, it simply sits and observes
these characters in their natural environment. The lighting and set design do the rest. Despite its nearly three hour running
time, American Gangster is always
interesting to look at. Though
this may seem like trite praise, it is a big part of why the film gets away
with its epic length.
Still, as
much as I wanted to enjoy this film to the fullest (I'm quite a crime film
buff), I left the theatre feeling rather hollow. This is due to a number of factors which simply don't add
up. Perhaps my most pressing
problem is with Frank Lucas as a character. As written in the script, its relatively clear that he's a
sociopath. A smart sociopath with
a brilliant business sense, but a sociopath nonetheless. Sure, he talks about honesty and
integrity, but sooner or later he'll inevitably throw it all out the window to
smash a man's head in a piano when he's frustrated. From the beginning to the end, he remains a cipher. The performance of Denzel Washington
does almost nothing to change this.
I am rather mystified at the glowing praise he is receiving. Yes, Denzel nails Lucas' ice-cold
pragmatism and sudden bursts of rage, but in the end its all just a mask. We never see the man underneath. Beyond sheer greed and a deep-seated
sense of racial injustice, its never clear what drives him to reach such
heights, to push away everyone and everything that he cares about in the
single-minded pursuit of his 'business'.
True, there is a thrill in watching Washington be the 'bad guy' again,
but this performance lacks the live-wire intensity of his Oscar winning turn in
Training Day. By the time the credits roll it feels
like we've spent three hours with a very bored professional. He does what is required of him, cranks
up the intensity for a few scenes, looks damn cool in a suit, then gets his
paycheck. I donŐt think Denzel's
heart was in this one.
This is not
to say that Lucas' story isn't interesting: Its fascinating.
Scott delves deep into the machinations of Lucas' empire: where the drugs come from, how they're
processed, how the money is stored away, etc. This is all extremely engrossing, but without a single
character to care about, its appeal becomes rather cosmetic and
superficial. It becomes more of a
technical exercise than anything else.
On the
other end of the spectrum, we have Russel Crowe. As detective Riche Roberts, Crowe amps up the gruff
blue-collar mannerisms and tough-guy swagger. In the end, he fares better than his co-star. Where Lucas is bloodless and
methodical, Roberts is messy, flawed, and persistantly human. If there's any character that we
connect with, its him. The problem
with Roberts' storyline is that
its just not interesting enough. Whenever we cut away to see Roberts
attend another custody hearing with his bitter ex-wife or talk shop with his
narcotics team, we're practically begging to get back to the criminal intrigue
of Lucas' Harlem exploits. While
its easy for one to appreciate the strength of Russel Crowe as an actor, the
script does him no favors. He
becomes merely an exceptionally well-played stereotype: the honest cop.
One last nagging
problem caught my attention. There
are times in American Gangster
where I don't know if Ridley Scott knew what kind of movie he wanted to
make. For most of its running
time, the film maintains the somber, humorless tone of 'serious' crime epics
like The Godfather. Then, every once in awhile, Scott
throws in a stylistic flourish thatŐs pure pulp. Take the opening scene: Frank Lucas sets a man on fire then shoots him, cut to
black, suddenly—BAM—the title comes up: American Gangster. The entire under-21 crowd in the
audience bursts into cheers, ready for a couple hours of head-smashing and cool
one-liners. Then Scott goes all
classy on us, giving the audience dark burnished interiors, quiet dialogue, and
plot exposition. Half the audience
is happy, the other half wonders when people are going to start shooting each
other again. Scott executes a
couple of jarring switches like this throughout the narrative. For about 90% of the film, things
remains quiet, controlled, and relatively subtle. Still, there is that 10% that seems to be out of a different
movie altogether: A blazing
shootout in a drug lab thatŐs straight out of Bad Boys, corrupt cops in leather jackets executing the
'slow-motion walk' that just tells
you how bad they are. In the end,
these tonal disturbances took me out of the narrative. I have no problem with a stylized crime
film wherein people walk in slow motion and have a shootout that's straight out
of WWII, but Ridley Scott clearly doesn't want to make that movie. Perhaps I'm making a mountain out of a
molehill, but it caught me off-guard.
In the end,
if you go into American Gangster with
your expectation knocked down a few notches, I can all but guarantee that
you'll enjoy it. As a crime film,
its rock solid, every bit the professional production that you'd expect from a
Ridley Scott joint. Still, the ad
campaign all but screams OSCAR, and people are trying to hype it into something
beyond what it is: a solid crime
drama. Its not a classic. Despite what the ads might claim, its
not going to dethrone The Departed
in the pantheon of recent crime films.
But hey,
I'm not saying the thing isn't entertaining.