It should be virtually impossible for a director as renowned and brilliant as Ridley Scott(the original Alien, Gladiator, Black Hawk Down and a slew of others) to team up with Denzel Washington (Philadelphia, Training Day) and Russell Crowe(A Beautiful Mind, 3:10 To Yuma)--two of the greatest living actors of modern cinema--and deliver a movie which has virtually nothing to say, and which essentially goes nowhere fast.
And yet, here we have American Gangster.
The movie is based upon an old article from New York Maga-zine, titled "The Return of Superfly". That article was primarily an interview with Frank Lucas, the premiere heroin dealer in Harlem during the late sixties into the early seventies. In his time, Lucas made millions smuggling 100% pure heroin from VIetman inside the caskets of dead U.S. soldiers, cutting it and selling it directly to his buyers...with the help of his own brothers, whom he recruit-ed into the criminal lifestyle. At the time, Lucas was a brutal and ruthless man, who managed to outdo every crime syndicate on the East Coast in terms of distribution and income. He brokered a deal with Mafia crime families to essentially work for him to open up more routes on the West Coast and other avenues, and drove other competitors out of business through cut-rate pricing on the drugs which they couldn't equal.
The most amazing thing about Frank Lucas was that he was a Black man.
With such a rich, true-to-life character to draw from, how is it that Ridley Scott could manage to craft a film so bland, so slow-paced? Perhaps it's because the real Frank Lucas' life was so chilling, so bloody, so down-and-dirty, that Gangster's Lucas seems almost tame in comparison. Perhaps it's because the film spends too much time on Russell Crowe's detective character, who not only is too small-time to waste precious moments on which to focus, but recent claims by retired officers who worked on Lucas' case show that the real-life officer Crowe portrays was not even central to cracking the case, as depicted. Whatever the reason, with such a rich well of history--and now controversy--from which to draw, American Gangster should have turned out to be a far superior film.
As if to justify its intense trailers, American Gangster begins with an unnamed victim being doused with gasoline by underlings of Ellsworth "Bumpy" Johnson(Clarence Williams III), then-crime-lord of Harlem. His driver/bodyguard/apprentice Frank Lucas(Washington) lights the man on fire and shoots him several times to top it off. After the credits, we are introduced to Detective Richie Roberts(Crowe), an extremely honest cop and his partner Javier Rivera(Miami Vice's John Ortiz). While tailing a bookie for the mob, the two cops eventually recover a cool million dollars from the trunk of his car. Remember that this part of the story takes place in the last few years of the sixties; police corruption was pretty much at an all-time high. Rivera argues that if they turn the money in, they face ostracism from other officers, but Richie's conscience is far stronger than the need to be accepted, and they do turn the money in...almost all of it that is, since Rivera apparently pockets some when Richie's not looking. We then pick up on Frank Lucas and "Bumpy", as the latter has a heart attack in an appliance store and dies, leaving Frank with the job of looking after what remains of the empire...an especially unenviable task, in light of other drug dealers such as Tango(the always amazing Idris Elba from Brit series Ultraviolet and 28 Weeks Later) who immediately decide it's time to move in on "Bumpy"'s former territories.
Frank isn't one to suffer fools lightly however, and in short order begins to make certain there isn't any competition, even while hatching his greatest scheme after viewing news on the heroin epidemic which is overcoming soldiers in Vietnam due to its easy access. Having Nate(Roger Guenveur Smith), a former cousin by marriage stationed over there, Frank quickly has him set up a connection with General Chang(Ric Young), a warlord who has vital access to seemingly endless poppy fields.
In the meantime, we are introduced to the slower and less necessary portion of the film, namely Richie Roberts' child custody proceedings with his soon-to-be ex-wife Laurie(Carla Gugino). It is here that American Gangster fails most obviously: it vacillates when it tries to divide the story evenly between Frank's climb to criminal success and Richie's hum-drum everyday life of hero's poverty. We are shown just how much Richie's supposed to be suffering for being an honest guy by seeing him make dinner sandwiches with only potato chips as filler. If it wasn't for the fact Richie regularly bangs random stewardesses and his own amazingly hot lawyer(KaDee Strickland), there'd probably be a halo floating over his head while he hunts down the bad guys.
There are other serious flaws with both the storytelling and primary character development: For one thing, Richie's boss finally manages to snag him a job organizing his own specialized task force to bring down major drug dealers. Once Richie gets his group together and they start trying to piece the puzzle of the drug "Blue Magic" together, it's unclear if this is the only case they're working on. If it's not, we're never shown what other cases they might be working or any fruits of their labor. Is one case truly enough to justify the existence of a specialized task force for all the time(apparently a few years) it takes them to make the conn-ection between Frank Lucas and the drug?
Also, Frank meets and(apparently) falls for Eva(gorgeous vir-tual newcomer Lymari Nadal), a Miss Puerto Rico contest winner. The two are instantly taken with each other...but whereas it seems Eva genuinely has feelings for Frank, for him it seems like she is just one more pretty object he wants to possess, no differ-ent from one of his many houses or cars. There are never any declarations of love between them, and their relationship seems to consist of a superficial tenderness at best. This may or may not have been the case in real life, but with so little of their rela-tionship revealed to us--why do they stay married? Is Eva fearful of leaving Frank or does she truly love him?--there's little reason for the audience to care about their marriage, one way or the other.
Frank as written is a character of moderate depth. Without hesitation, he brings all of his brothers into his confidence to assure absolute loyalty from those closest to him while he carries out his criminal endeavors. He obviously does a lot of what he does because he loves his mother(played by the legendary Ruby Dee), although she consciously disavows all possible questions pertaining to how he acquires his wealth and manages to buy her a sprawling mansion.
Other characters and moments are underutilized or go almost completely wasted. Cuba Gooding Jr. plays Nicky Barnes, Frank Lucas' chief rival at the time, yet appears in a handful of scenes, and only one sharing any interaction with Lucas. Perhaps it's be-cause Barnes is supposed to have a movie coming out based on his own life, but Gooding is in fine form here. He should have been used to better effect. In what seems like a further effort to justify the audience spending their money to see a gangster film(all the best parts of this movie were definitely in the trailers), there is a gratuitious scene of a man getting his head blown open while Frank is explaining to Eva the values "Bumpy" taught him. This scene actually elicited snickers from my screening audience, and would have worked better if it hadn't been included.
Detective work is one part intelligence and procedure, two parts luck--and it is a stroke of luck which clues Richie in to the fact that America's most notorious drug lord is a Black male. Something which almost no one but Richie's investigative crew and his own boss believe. Once this fact is set in Richie's mind and his investigation finally proceeds down the proper path, it leads to a showdown with Frank and his people. I'd like to report that the two hours it takes to get to this moment(Gangster clocks in at a bloated 2:37) are worth it, but I honestly can't. I'd like to report that Denzel and Crowe give the best performances of their careers, but at most, both men are just severely competent. In fact, the only time Crowe and Washington are together on screen comes near the very end of the film. While in an interrogation room it's clear that Crowe's Roberts has the upper hand, Wash-ington's Lucas owns the scene. Thus is the debate of which man is the better actor forever closed.
To Gangster's credit, its setting in late sixties/early seventies New York and New Jersey has an air of functional authenticity un-matched by anything in recent memory. Having grown up in such locales in that era, I can say with absolute confidence that from the refurbishing of old-time fire hydrants down to its soundtrack, Gangster feels like a movie shot in that time period, which some-one has only recently unearthed.
There is still a lot of Best Picture Oscar buzz for American Gangster, which I attribute to two factors: First, the names of Scott, Washington and Crowe have generated the initial chatter. Second, enough people simply haven't seen Gangster yet. For a film to be worthy of winning Hollywood's most coveted prize, it has to be an outstanding film, an exemplary film, one which contains attributes of shocking originality that rise above the standard. In short, a noteworthy film.
While considerable effort has been expended in the creation of this movie from all concerned, I fear that come a year from now, more important and worthy films will have come down the road and supplanted Ridley Scott's latest effort in the minds of the public and--more importantly--in the minds of Academy voters.
Barely remembered next year, American Gangster won't be regarded as noteworthy. It'll be little more than a footnote.
Official Archives of LanceReviews...
Gangster, where is thy sting?
Ridley Scott's latest turns out to be a surprising American Snoozefest
The greatness of a Gangster? Don't believe the hype!
Denzel Washington plays notorious Harlem kingpin Frank Lucas--a man who will do anything to ensure the success of his criminal empire.
Russell Crowe plays The Only Honest Cop in the tri-state area...a person who might not have actually been as import-ant in the real-life case.
Virtual newcomer Lymari Nadal plays Eva, whom Lucas falls in love with. The question(aside from the obvious) is: why?
Frank recruits his brothers, who follow him into crime without question...one of the few historical facts the movie gets com-pletely accurate.
Legendary thesp Ruby Dee plays Frank's mom...who only expresses outrage at the things he's done when it seems the feds are going to take all the ill-gotten gains away.
"Hey, man...this burger and fries was supposed to come with some plot!"
