American Gangster

Kyle:

American Gangster is one of those movies that the more I watch it, the less I end up liking it. When it first came out, I loved Denzel and his no-nonsense approach as running the gangland territory that he inherited from his mentor, the bumbling do-good cop played by Russell Crowe, and the swarmy NYPD detective of Josh Brolin. However, something about Denzel’s character started bugging me. Then I figured it out- he was just Denzel. That’s the part he plays. Whether the movie is American Gangster, Training Day, Man on Fire, John Q, Remember the Titans, or Book of Eli, you will always get the same bad ass, over-the-shoulder glare, he will beat his chest, and he will at some point talk about how he’s the man. There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s his schtick, I get it. However, in the context of this movie, it kind of makes the whole story unbelievable. One thing I will agree with Roger Ebert’s assessment- if you look beyond the fact that he is producing and selling heroin, the movie could be a text book for how to vertically integrate a distributed product. Also, everyone needs someone like his mother in their lives.

I give it 7 out of a dimebag.

Given the fact that the movie has sex, drugs, violence, bad language, etc. I'm calling it a solid NJA.

Nicole:

I remember wanting this movie to be so good. It has a stellar cast with Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe and Josh Brolin. I wanted it to become a classic, but something about it just didn’t ring my bell. The gist of it is that Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington) becomes the leading heroin producer and distributor in New York after his mentor passes away. He figures out that he can go straight to the source in Asia during the Vietnam War and get a more pure product to sell at a cheaper cost. The problem is that the product is so good that people are overdosing left and right. Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe) is an honest New Jersey cop that has been put in charge of figuring out who was bringing in all the drugs. As a bonus he goes after the crooked cops that are working with the bad guys (Josh Brolin) and ends up arresting 75% of the force.

I liked this movie. It was entertaining, but I feel like it was just shy being really great. Denzel Washington is good, but he basically plays Denzel Washington. Don’t get me wrong. Denzel is the man at being Denzel, but I found that Kyle and I got a little bored because we knew what was going to happen. I think maybe they spent too much time in Frank Lucas’s personal story and it made everything slow down a little too much. Russell Crowe is good in it too, but I kind of feel the same way about his role. They go into his messy personal life and it distracts from the main story line. Their professional lives are what brought us here. There was one character that we would have missed if the families were left out though. Mama Lucas played by Ruby Dee. In my eyes she stole the show. This woman maybe had 10 minutes of screen time all together and was nominated for an academy award. She is that good. Kyle and I both agree that everyone needs a Mama Lucas in their lives to slap us when we aren’t listening. She is strong and she is wise and I want her as a grandmother. This movie is worth the watch just to see how Frank Lucas made his millions and to see Denzel do his thing. I wouldn’t buy it again for multiple viewings, but if it has been a few years and I caught it on TV I might stay to watch. I give this movie 7 Mama Lucas’ out of 10.

Fun Facts:

I read into this story a little bit because I wondered how much we should believe. The big stuff is basically true. Richie Roberts really did find $1,000,000 in the trunk of a car and turned it in, he arrested all of those cops, and he became a lawyer. However, he was not a dead beat dad and took high offense to this fabrication. He went on record to say that he didn’t even have a kid with his first wife. But all the women he slept with, that was true. (Hey, it was the 60’s!) Frank Lucas did not get a $50,000 chinchilla coat from his wife. It was a $100,000 chinchilla coat  and it played a factor into the police looking closer at him. They were already watching him, but it was a big indicator that he was making way more than $25,000 a year. His cousins and brothers came to work for him and he really shot a man in broad daylight on the sidewalk and walked away without a word said to him. Something that they didn’t tell you in the movie is that Richie Roberts paid to put Frank Jr. through private Catholic school. Richie commends Frank for what he did and wanted to help in some way. Awwww