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Harvey Karten's Reviews

Review: American Gangster

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#1 of 1 Posted 10/10/07 10:48 PM

From harveykarten Posts 798 Last Feb-7
To All [Msg # 22687.1 ]

AMERICAN GANGSTER

Reviewed for CompuServe by Harvey S. Karten
Universal Pictures
Grade: B
Directed by:    Ridley Scott
Written By: Steven Zaillian from Mark Jacobson's article
Cast:   Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe, Cuba Gooding, Jr., Josh Brolin, RZA, Ruby Dee
Screened at: Universal, NYC, 10/10/07
Opens: November 2, 2007

When I was in grade school, we were taught that the policemen are our friends. Many of them really were, though we heard from some of the more hip fourth-graders that they sometimes demanded free meals in coffee shops, allegedly in return for protecting the establishments. Since then, the movies caused us to lose our innocence about the police, the most stirring being Sidney Lumet’s 1973 venture “Serpico,” based on the true story of an undercover cop who refuses to conform. He exposes departmental corruption, is isolated by everyone on the staff, is almost killed by a fellow detective, and winds up going into exile in Switzerland to escape with his life.

“American Gangster” is likewise based on a true story, one that centers on two individuals, each with a moral code. One is a detective who in one point turns in a one million dollar haul rather than split it with his buddies as cops were wont to do. The other is a hoodlum who believed in selling only pure product and who treats his mother and family quite well.   His honesty extends to lashing out against a dealer who adulterates the heroin. The gangster, Frank Lucas, was an actual drug dealer in Harlem in the early 1970s making $2 million a day pushing heroin in the neighborhood–and that’s when the American dollar was stronger than it is today. Lucas was well known for several reasons. One is that as a dealer, he was able to compete with the Italian mafia, selling “blue magic” at half the price and with twice the quality–able to do this because unlike anyone else in the trade, he flew directly to the wholesaler in Bangkok thereby avoiding middleman charges. Another is that he operated as an independent contractor rather than as a member of, say, a Black mafia, and stunned many detectives who thought that nobody could compete with the well-established Italian wiseguys. When convicted in 1976 of federal and state drug violations, he offered evidence that led to the prosecution of at least thirty-two members of the police force and a hundred or so drug criminals like himself, gaining a reduced sentence.

As in Martin Scorsese’s “The Departed,” Ridley Scott’s police drama deals with two men on opposite sides of the law. The role of the hoodlum, Frank Lucas, is performed against type by Denzel Washington, regularly dressed in expensive designer suits except in a final scene that has him in a white T-shirt. The 1970's, a decade with an unpopular war in Southeast Asia and a cynical counterculture that would have no problem believing that police were corrupt, has Frank Lucas described as one of the most dangerous men in America. Director Scott wastes no time in demonstrating Lucas’s brutality: he pours gasoline over a rival dealer, lights a match, but puts the poor man out of his misery in seconds by shooting him. Shifting regularly from Lucas to Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe), director Scott contrasts the gangster with the detective, who is seen returning a one million dollar drug haul to the station for evidence, shocking criminals and police alike. Just as Lucas rounded up men of his choosing to help him with his dirty work, New Jersey detective Roberts is authorized to pick his own team to assist him in bringing down the notorious gangster.

Dropping names and faces like Joe Louis, Muhammed Ali, and Nicky Barnes (played by Cuba Gooding, Jr.), Ridley’s movie, scripted by Steve Zaillian from an article by Mark Jacobson, has the flavor of a biopic, but one with moments of high drama rather than the static, talking-heads-dominated nature of the typical documentary. What comes across is that organized crime is just another business, with a chief executive officer, an accountant, some bodyguards, the workers who assemble the heroin into small bags (labeled “blue magic” in this case)–though advertising is strictly by word-of-mouth rather than through the legitimate media.   Lucas, like corporations that today outsource their product to chief labor, goes directly to the source of the heroin in Bangkok, buying directly from an Asian kingpin who manages to smuggle the powder into coffins of soldiers returning from Vietnam.

While Crowe and Washington carry the movie, the first hour or so is a jumble, whether by faulty editing or by Scott’s desire to respect the audience and to allow us gradually to assemble the pieces of the celluloid jigsaw puzzle. After the long exposition is completed wherein we get a feel for what makes the two principals tick, Scott moves more directly into action culminating not only in the obligatory shootout but in the picture’s best scene in which criminal and detective face off calmly to explain their separate points of view and to cut a deal. Richie Roberts, like Serpico, comes off at least as interesting as the villain, a three-dimensional human being who works such long hours and with such dedication to the job that he must fight his ex-wife in court for visitation rights–the latter having ostensibly ended the marriage for thinking (erroneously, I’d say) that Roberts is doing the kind of work that prevents him from being a good dad.    Ultimately, both Washington and Crowe act as though they have lived the parts, though, given the number of similar dramas like “The Departed,” “The Godfather” series, “Goodfellas” and the like, there’s not all that much that’s different or original about “American Gangster.”

Rated R.    158 minutes   © 2007 by Harvey Karten Member: NY Film Critics Online

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Harvey Karten's Reviews

Review: American Gangster

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