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"American Gangster"
Ridley Scott's American Gangster (Universal, 11.2) is, of course, naturally... hello?...an absolute Best Picture contender because it's a straight, robust, high-velocity crime saga in the grand New York movie tradition of '70s and '80s Sidney Lumet. Which, in case you haven't been paying attention, is a very cool and vogue-ish thing to be churning out right now, and not for ephemeral reasons.
This is not a first-rate cops-and-dealers drama by the director of Alien, Blade Runner, Gladiator and Black Hawk Down as much as a wonderfully focused and flavorful time-machine ride back to the gritty-stinky Abe Beame-Ed Koch world of Serpico, Prince of the City and The French Connection.
I'm not speaking of some sophisticated film-maven exercise but a dead-on, true-blue revisiting -- a submission by a great director to an ethos and an aesthetic that feels absolutely real and true to itself, which is to say true to what happened and particularly the way life caused two dogged, determined locomotives -- legendary Harlem smack dealer Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington) and his opposite number, the doggedly honest Det. Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe) -- to crash into each other's fate.
The result isn't the craziest or most thrilling New York crime film you've ever seen, but one with a more authentic and character-rich sense of itself and its milieu than anything released in a very long time. It's a film with absolute balls-to-the-wall integrity that can't miss with audiences, and it tells a plain, strong story with a beginning, a middle and an end. It ought to score a bulls-eye with critics and the Academy and if it doesn't there's something wrong, and I don't mean with the film.
On top of which it's the best film of this type -- complex, interesting, sympathetic good guy vs. complex, interesting half-sympathetic bad guy -- since Heat.
Does this saga of the rise and fall of Lucas make you tear up and cry at some point? Does it unleash an emotional meltdown in your chest somewhere during the middle of the third act? No, and shame on anyone for asking. Did The French Connection or The Departed moisten tear ducts? American Gangster is what it is, and deserves a salute for this. It doesn't pander or amplify or push buttons or pull any cheap tricks.
I was a wee bit disappointed when last Tuesday night's screening came to an end. It had begun around 7 pm, and the closing credits were rolling north around 9:40 pm. What...only 158 minutes? I'd been given all the nutrition any moviegoer could possibly ask for, but I was Oliver Twist. I wanted more.
This is one of those movies that is so good and cocksure in its New York textures and tough hammer-like attitude, that you're saying to yourself early on, "I don't want this to end." I wanted the indulgent director's cut right then and there. I wanted Ridley to swing for the bleachers and make it three hours. Hell, I could have gone for three and a half. I wanted to pig out.
I mean, my God...even Cuba Gooding comes off pretty well in a co-starring role, and he's one of those guys with an Irish banshee going "whooooo" behind his back.
Based on a New York magazine article by Mark Jacobson ("The Return of Superfly") and working from a screenplay by Steve Zallian, Gangster follows the paths of Lucas and Roberts -- step by step, chapter by chapter -- and how they lead to a third-act showdown.
Lucas's heroin-dealing heyday was from '69 or so to 1976. He claimed in the Jacobson article to have grossed $1 million a day at one point. A lawman once described his operation as "one of the most outrageous international dope- smuggling gangs ever." Lucas's claim to fame is that he smuggled in his Vietnamese kilos (98% pure heroin) in the coffins of dead U.S. soldiers.
Lucas, we learn right off the bat, is a somewhat conservative guy. We first meet him as a driver/assistant for Ellsworth "Bumpy" Johnson (a cameo role handled by Clarence Williams III), who's instilled in Lucas a respect for the old way of doing things. We also see from the get-go that he's perfectly capable of pouring gasoline over some guy, lighting him up and then filling him with hot lead. But he also gets up at 5 ayem, eats breakfast in the same luncheonette every day, and takes his mother to church on Sundays.
He's a villain, sure, but he's fairly likable (he's Denzel, after all) and semi-respec- table. He's not totally crazy, and he dresses conservatively and runs his business (i.e., providing a product) like any conservative businessman would. Selling heroin is like spreading a kind of death, but I'm of the libertarian view that people have the right to dope their souls to hell if they're so inclined. I also think guys like Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney are just as evil as guys like Lucas, and perhaps even more so.
The first significant thing we see Roberts, a Manhattan detective, do is come upon a suitcase stuffed with a million untraceable bucks and promptly turn every last bill into his station chief. (Anyone who says they wouldn't at least think about skimming a few grand is either stupid or lying.) Obviously he's a very different bird than Frank, and yet the film gradually persuades us that they're not so far apart.
Both adhere to a strict ethical code that sets them apart from comme ci comme ca colleagues, both see their friendships and family lives crack apart under the strain of their work and their single-minded stubbornness, and both run their own renegade teams to get a risky job done.
Deep down, American Gangster is really a procedural film about the ups and down of running a tough business. I challenge anyone who's run his or her own business to watch it and say they don't feel at least a little respect and sympathy for Frank, who is first and foremost a vulture and a scumbag, yes, but is also just trying to run a tight ship. It's always the mark of a good film to persuade you to feel two ways about the same lead character.
Frank and Richie, in the final analysis, are guys who believe in discipline, hard work, integrity, family, adhering to a code. They both pay for being such hard- cases, but in real life Roberts wound up becoming a full-time attorney and wound up defending Lucas in some matter. Life is funny that way, and it sure as shit isn't black and white.
Posted by Jeffrey Wells on September 28, 2007 at 3:33 PM
comment #1
christian
says ...
film esthetics aside, i'm weary of this bowing and scraping before thug gangsters ala sopranos.
Posted by christian
at September 28, 2007 3:39 PM
comment #2
gruver1
says ...
Denzel's character is more of a small businessman (okay, a big businessman) who's trying to make things work as efficiently as possible, and that means having to crack down on the sloppies in his own organization and having to defend it at times from invaders. Nobody's bowing and scraping to anyone. What's worse, selling tobacco or booze, which both kill at remarkable rates, or heroin? Ordinary citizens are killing themselves with alcohol and cigarettes every day, and everybody shrugs it off. Product is product. Business is business. You can't wink at the legalized poisons and in the same breath say that heroin and coke are evil -- that doesn't square.
Posted by gruver1
at September 28, 2007 3:44 PM
comment #3
christian
says ...
"Business is business."
the creed of the bush administration, jeff.
Posted by christian
at September 28, 2007 3:48 PM
comment #4
George Prager
says ...
Time for those smelling salts...
Posted by George Prager
at September 28, 2007 3:53 PM
comment #5
gruver1
says ...
Wells to Christian: I'm afraid I'm a libertarian when it comes to selling products that will kill you or ruin your life. I believe that people should have an absolute right to destroy or pollute themselves if they so choose. I therefore don't think the sellers of such product that happen to be licensed and taxed by the government are any netter or worse than those who sell poisons that aren't licensed and taxed.
Posted by gruver1
at September 28, 2007 3:55 PM
comment #6
christian
says ...
fyi, i agree, jeff. but if you choose to put yourself in a line of work that kills or enslaves people which in turn wrecks other lives, i'm not going to be there to say, hey, free market, yay. you don't sound so lazy fare on cigarettes...
anyway, i'm still going to see this.
and prager, if i had a towel i'd snap you with it.
Posted by christian
at September 28, 2007 4:01 PM
comment #7
corey3rd
says ...
it's good to see Cuba in a role that wasn't turned down by Eddie Murphy and Ice Cube.
Posted by corey3rd
at September 28, 2007 4:01 PM
comment #8
George Prager
says ...
I once had a debate with a friend over The Sopranos. I told him that what makes the show interesting is all the things we (the nice non-gangsters) have in common with the characters.
Abe Beame. There's a name I haven't heard in a while. How about Herman Badillo?
Posted by George Prager
at September 28, 2007 4:04 PM
comment #9
cjKennedy
says ...
Movies don't romanticize the people who own or work for Philip Morris. It's not sexy or attractive because it's legal. Gangsters aren't attractive because they provide a product every good libertarian should be able to have, they're attractive because they're breaking the law.
I don't know what I'm trying to say. Moving on.
I'm looking forward to American Gangster, but Jeff you have to admit Ridley Scott is someting of a blind spot for you. I'll take your enthusiasm with a dose of caution until I get to see it. I hope you're right though.
Posted by cjKennedy
at September 28, 2007 4:07 PM
comment #10
Wrecktum
says ...
Could gritty cop and robbers actioners win Best Pic two years in a row? I doubt it.
Scott is a filmmaker I normally dislike but I will definitely check this out. One thing's wrong about Wells' assessment: neither Crowe nor Denzel are 70s authentic because both are so utterly contemporary in their look and style. It's easy to see them in the far past (Master/Commander, Glory) because they're essentially playing make-believe. But if Scott's goal is to imbue this film with '70s-era authenticity, he chose the wrong guys.
Posted by Wrecktum
at September 28, 2007 4:08 PM
comment #11
The Movie Man
says ...
Regardless of your beliefs on drugs, free market, Bush, etc, as a believer in film the team of Ridley Scott/Russell Crowe and Denzel Wahington should be impossible to resist.
Terrific trailer too.
Posted by The Movie Man
at September 28, 2007 4:08 PM
comment #12
gruver1
says ...
Wells to Wrecktum: Crowe's '70s haircut looks pretty convincing to me, and I would die if Denzel wore an Afro in this.
Posted by gruver1
at September 28, 2007 4:10 PM
comment #13
The Movie Man
says ...
Good point on the Ridley blindspot thing CJ, A GOOD YEAR, was a career low for Scott, in my humble opinion. More of that hypocritical denouncement of riches made by rich people pandering to the middle class horseshit.
Posted by The Movie Man
at September 28, 2007 4:11 PM
comment #14
actionman
says ...
amazing review Wells, I had a feeling that this would be a knock-out crime picture. Here's hoping that Ridley FINALLY gets the Academy recognition he deserves. It will be a very tight race this year with lots of great films and filmmakers strutting their stuff, but American Gangster sounds pretty incredible already. Can't wait!
Posted by actionman
at September 28, 2007 4:13 PM
comment #15
cjKennedy
says ...
That's exactly what I was alluding to, but again I hope American Gangster kicks large amounts of ass.
Posted by cjKennedy
at September 28, 2007 4:14 PM
comment #16
Pelham123
says ...
Any movie that references/echoes "The French Connection" and I'm there. Now, can we get some love for John Frankenheimer's "French Connection 2"? (crickets) No? Well, I'll put my plug in for it now as it's an underrated hardboiled '70's classic...that no one has seen.
Posted by Pelham123
at September 28, 2007 4:35 PM
comment #17
MilkMan
says ...
If this movie gets nominated for anything, let alone actually wins any Oscars, I will cry and punch my wife in the neck, when I think it's nigh impossible for Zodiac to garner any awards season respect. Scott, with the exception of Alien and Blade Runner is a freaking hack. He deserves an Oscar? Maybe an honorary one, I guess, but for that last movie he did with Russell Crowe he deserves nothing but to be ignored. That movie was worse than being in Dr. Cameron's Sleep Room.
I mean, shit, go ahead and give an oscar to his brother. Why not?
I've seen the preview for AG and the period detail is almost non-existent, except for the muttonchops on some of Denzel's henchman.
If Crowe had any integrity as an actor he would have grown a J. Schwartzman 'stache and put on fifty pounds.
And can anyone tell me the difference between Adrian Lyne, Alan Parker and Ridley Scott? It seems to me that all of them were conceived by the same chemists who work in seceret for the MI5 in an lab underneath the Battersea Power Station.
Posted by MilkMan
at September 28, 2007 4:35 PM
comment #18
erniesouchak
says ...
This movie does have great visual texture, but in the end I felt that's all it had. Neither lead character comes across as particularly complex -- Denzel is a gangster who takes his mom to church...so what? -- and the movie is especially skimpy on the details of how the cops put their case together, which was no small feat. Too much time is spent wallowing in the gangster milieu, in my opinion. It's the Denzel show, and more and more I feel he delivers the same performance in everything he does.
Posted by erniesouchak
at September 28, 2007 4:44 PM
comment #19
jeffmcm
says ...
If we only made movies about people who obeyed the law and always acted ethically and morally, we wouldn't have very many movies.
Posted by jeffmcm
at September 28, 2007 4:56 PM
comment #20
actionman
says ...
Pelham123, totally with you on French Connection 2. While not the masterwork that the first film was, it's a tough, gritty action movie that could only have come out in the 70's.
Posted by actionman
at September 28, 2007 5:08 PM
comment #21
lazarus
says ...
I still feel the Academy may have some collective subconscious guilt over allowing a crowd-pleasing high body count film like The Departed to win BP last year, and will be wary of doing the same thing again, opting for something a big more serious.
And I also feel that while Ridley Scott's filmography has some great moments, it has some that on the surface look like hackery. And the only thing worse than hack work might be personally initiated projects that STILL come off like hack work. I don't feel it will be that difficult for him to be overlooked by the Academy--if he's overdue now wasn't he already overdue in 2000 when he could easily have won for Gladiator? He has a very cold, disconnected style that doesn't resonate in the heart. If it took them that long to warm to Scorsese's East Coast aesthetic, which has a hell of a lot more warmth than Scott's touch, you're looking at an Honorary Oscar somewhere down the line, and that's about it.
Posted by lazarus
at September 28, 2007 5:17 PM
comment #22
I,Claudius
says ...
Oh come on, Jeff. I was at the same screening you were at the Westside Pavillion and the audience seemed completely indifferent to the film. Both Crowe and Washington offer nuanced performances but the narrative of this film is so jumbled (especially the first 90 minutes), with characters coming and going without explanation that I'm skeptical this will connect with a mass audience, particularly with one that votes on awards.
Posted by I,Claudius
at September 28, 2007 5:48 PM
comment #23
gruver1
says ...
Wells to I, Claudius: The narrative is not jumbled. In the first 90 minutes or the last 70 minutes. The jumbled element is in your head. And what would you have the audience do during the showing? Shout and scream?
Posted by gruver1
at September 28, 2007 6:08 PM
comment #24
Mr. Gittes
says ...
A little off topic but Jeff, here's a pic of Crowe and DiCaprio on the set of "Body of Lies." Ridley's next...
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b54/shaolin1990/image3.jpg
Crowe is looking like Jeff Wigand again...maybe that's why he was a little beefy for the 3:10 to Yuma premiere.
Posted by Mr. Gittes
at September 28, 2007 6:31 PM
comment #25
Gaydos
says ...
jeff, claudius: i was at that westside pav screening and I don't give a rat's ass what the audience thought. I'm deeply grateful to jeff for articulating much of what makes this a terrific, riveting film. It's not pretentious, no sturm und drang, no family mythology, no Catholic guilt (hint hint, no Coppola, no Scorsese wannabe here) but like French Connection and To Live and Die in LA, it's a captivating crime film but also a rich lesson in politics and commerce and ethics. Will Oscar get it? Don't have a clue. Did Jeffo describe its wonders damn well? You betchum....
Posted by Gaydos
at September 28, 2007 10:32 PM
comment #26
Kristopher Tapley
says ...
Eh - it's not THAT good. And it's not a Best Pic slam dunk, either. Lots of dissent out there...
Posted by Kristopher Tapley
at September 28, 2007 10:34 PM
comment #27
Kristopher Tapley
says ...
And considering yours is just the second US review of the film (after mine last week), I'd say people are being nice and keeping their dissenting opinions to themselves. It says something that there isn't a lot of chatter out there for this thing, and it's screened a couple of times now...
Just sayin'. My opinion of the film falls a notch by the moment, lately.
Posted by Kristopher Tapley
at September 28, 2007 10:36 PM
comment #28
Kristopher Tapley
says ...
And by "chatter" I mean reviews...
Posted by Kristopher Tapley
at September 28, 2007 10:37 PM
comment #29
BurmaShave
says ...
Best cop movie since HEAT? Does THE DEPARTED not count as a cop movie because its a gangster movie too, or are you saying its better?
Posted by BurmaShave
at September 29, 2007 12:16 AM
comment #30
frankbooth
says ...
Seriously, why not an afro? That decision strikes me as a copout.
Remember those '70s movies set in the '50s (like The Front) in which the characters had longish hair and sideburns, because somebody thought audiences would laugh at authentically short period haircuts? Same thing.
I prefer the approach Scorsese took with Casino and DeNiro's suits: show the gaudiest, tackiest outfit imaginable right up front and get over it.
Also, have you seen The Wire? I hope AG is good and I'll probably see it, but Stringer Bell is a tough act to follow.
Posted by frankbooth
at September 29, 2007 1:56 AM
comment #31
nemo
says ...
"(Anyone who says they wouldn't at least think about skimming a few grand is either stupid or lying.))"
Thinking but not doing is exactly where ethics comes in. It's not an ethical choice if you're not at least tempted. Ethics is all about the things that are hard for you to do, not the easy things.
Posted by nemo
at September 29, 2007 8:13 AM
comment #32
vansmith
says ...
looking forward to it, would love to have seen michael mann direct it...
Posted by vansmith
at September 29, 2007 8:29 AM
comment #33
shanana
says ...
"it tells a plain, strong story..." sounds AWFUL.
Posted by shanana
at September 29, 2007 8:40 AM
comment #34
I,Claudius
says ...
I, Claudius to Wells: Um, the narrative is a mess. My friend and I looked at each other in disbelief and disappointment, as we're both hardcore Scott fans. I predict Crowe and Washington will get their propers from legit critics but the film itself will leave most people cold. There seemed like such a disconnect between the film and the audience at the screening we attended and I think you're just being your usual contrarian self.
Posted by I,Claudius
at September 29, 2007 11:35 PM
comment #35
lionsfan
says ...
Who plays Nicky Barnes, without whom Lucas might never have been put away, in the film? An old acquaintance-college nemesis was responsible for the Barnes case as an assistant US attorney at the time, that he couldn't protect his witnesses from assassination basically led to his resignation from his job.
Posted by lionsfan
at October 1, 2007 6:33 AM
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