Will the real American Gangsters please stand up

Rating: 9/10 (19 February 2009)

Sometimes the craft of a movie speaks for itself and is reason enough to recommend it. These days this often means a certain trade-off, since the audience gets a magnificent special-effects razzle-dazzle instead of a story, leaving the reviewer to praise the former and yearn for the latter. Not so Ridley Scott's "American Gangster", which scores high marks in every department and presents us with a crime- and police-drama of the tallest order.
As the title suggests this is, like last year's "The Departed", yet another major walk down America's mean streets. And like Scorsese's Beantown yarn, Scott is not just simply confronting us with cops and lowlifes, but turns the American Dream on its ear.
Here's a master class of capitalism seen through the eyes of Harlem-Crime-Lord Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington), who during the Vietnam war rose to fortune and power by personally shipping in pure heroin from Vietnam and Thailand and selling it at discount prices. A sly scheme that enabled him to eliminate the middle-man, the competition and which made him a host of enemies. Among them the corrupt NYPD, who was turning over a substantial profit from reselling seized drugs and extorting the powers that were. In the middle of this dangerous quagmire honest New Jersey-cop Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe) investigated both Lucas and his fellow officers and managed, in true Serpico-fashion, to bring the house of drugs down - at least for a split-second.
Labeled as "based on a true story" "American Gangster" for once actually earns the overused header, which is usually there to legitimize utter fiction. Scott's drama pulls of the rare feat of staying within the worlds of a familiar genre, clichés included, and at the same time demystifies our notion of noble gangsters and crooked cops.
Washington and Crowe are perfectly cast and provide their roles with the necessary gravitas and ambivalence. There's a sense of star power, but both leading men use their persona to take it to different levels. Washington's Lucas, mostly all charm as the drug-peddling benefactor of Harlem, unleashes bursts of violence and thereby undercutting any sympathy that may arise. Crowe's bulky physique is hammered by the characters sacrosanct work ethic, which keeps him close to the streets and away from his family.
Populated with familiar faces in small roles, and new faces in larger ones, there is a seamlessness and believability to every part that makes the movie a joy to watch. Yes, there are a few too familiar and mannered performances. Armand Assante's Don Cattano is a rehash of a dozen other mob-baddies and Josh Brolin's evil cop could basically wear a sign that says so. But leaving this aside, it's an astonishing ensemble that stays true to the material, skillfully weaved together by distinguished writer Steven Zaillian. As in his legal-drama "A Civil Action" Zaillian uses procedural techniques to advance the plot and creates a solid canvas, which forms the starting-off point for Scott and his collaborators. Taking Arthur Max' ever superb production design and combining it with cinematographer Harris Savides' muted color palette, consisting of deep blacks that remind us of the great works of Gordon Willis, Scott and editor Pietro Scalia maintain a strong pace from start to finish, never loosing focus and accompanied by a seventies soundtrack let loose a rollicking soul-beat manifesto.
After his paid holiday in Provence that resulted in the cutesy but bland "A Good Year", Scott now cooks up a fast-talking potboiler, turning themes of corruption and the necessity of crime into a depressing but always riveting street study. "American Gangster" shows the murky connection between crime and law, and of course their financial co-dependency. The movie argues, and rightly so, that terminating the drug or any illegal business would cause huge unemployment and seriously damage the economy, since all business is subject to one market force. So whether it's drugs, prostitution, weapons, Enron, Tyco, WorldCom, the trough is the same, as is the color of money.
Now will the real American Gangsters please stand up!