American Gangster (2007): A Sociopath Masquerades As A Great Family Man
Written: Nov 02 '07 (Updated Nov 02 '07)
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Product Rating:
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| Bang For The Buck |
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Pros: An exciting movie with some real surprises.
Cons: A bit looooong.
The Bottom Line: I recommend this to fans of crime movies who want to see and original story played out by two fine lead actors and others.
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| Ed.Williamson's Full Review: American Gangster |
Two of the very best- and I mean the very best- actors in our current crop of movie actors- crackle with energy and fire in American Gangster. In a role he seems born to play, Denzel Washington shows his highly crafted devilish bad-boy persona in a contest for the soul of New York with an unlikely archangel in Russell Crowe, fresh from playing the bad boy himself in this year’s 3:10 to Yuma.
Washington, who can play the saintly and the scarlet with the best of them, in a story drawn from real life, is an impregnable King of Harlem who has cornered the drug trade among those in the Afro-American community, and threatens to bleed his empire right on out into that of other groups. He’s The Man, the one the big thugs respect and the little thugs fear. And he’s smart. Rather than dressing like The City’s Coolest Pimp and glittering like a skyrocket in front of all the players and the slick chickies, he fades to gray in unimpressive business threads, like a shark sliding silently and in camouflage through the surf, but ready to tear apart any enemy his sociopathic side wants to eviscerate. Oh, in one scene he dons over-the-top clothes but it comes back to haunt him.
Yet like Brando’s Don Corleone of The Godfather, Washington’s Badd Badd Drug Lord has another side: he’s a loving family man who pleases his mama and his wife and the extended family and wants nothing more than to make The World A Better And Happier Place. Well, his world, anyway. In this place in his sociopathic counterphase, he wouldn’t hurt a fly…unless that fly enters into his space, in which case Mr. Upstanding Family Man goes from springtime into cold, deadly winter.
Rising up through the labyrinth that is the New York Police Department is a detective played by that most excellent Aussie actor who can dole out the sociopathic mood in deluxe fashion himself in other roles, Russell Crowe. Crowe studies and respects Denzel as the slippery denizen, and coolly plays the inevitable game of wits with his adversary.
The irony of the film is that Crowe’s cop, the straight man, has a personal life that is coming apart at the seams. His relationships are all over the map and he is as far from the ideal of a Good Old American Family Man as the stresses of downtown street wars from Harlem to Manhattan can take him. But in spite of the fact that he can’t seem to hold his own private life together, when he turns on as a cop, he is every bit the match that Denzel’s drug lord can meet on equal terms.
The best parts are when they meet face-to-face, of course. The dialog in the scenes where they are upon the end-game, like two boxers covered with blood in round twelve, are the most enjoyable. And different from most encounters of this type.
So there you have it. Black vs. white. Criminal vs. cop. Man with a together private life vs. man with a disintegrating private life. Honesty vs. Deception. And Washington vs. Crowe. That should satisfy anyone’s hunger for conflict. And this personal conflict is what, finally, this movie is all about. The plot is predictable and so is nearly everything else. What is original here is the new ground explored between two of the finest actors of our generation in terms of being mutually respectful adversaries who know that one of them is going down. Because of that, it rawks.
Look at it this way. In the movieworld of today, just about anything Crowe is in rocks. Have you ever seen him in a bad movie? And in the movieworld of today, just about anything Washington is in rocks. Have you ever seen him in a bad movie? You get it all times two. Maybe the box office ought to charge us twice (Not!).
Five Stars/ *****
Recommended:
Yes
Movie Mood: Action Movie
Viewing Method: Other
Film Completeness: Looked complete to me.
Worst Part of this Film: Duration
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Epinions.com ID:
Ed.Williamson
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 - Top 200 |
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Member: Ed Williamson
Location: Way Out West, USA
Reviews written: 601
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