American Hokum'

Rating: Null/10 (21 November 2007)

I went into this film with high expectations, tinged with a touch of trepidation due to Russel Crowe's name attached to the project, but I figured, Denzel Washington in a fur coat playing a baddie will get me through.
How wrong was I. From the first frame this film stinks, it stinks because everything about it is phoney. Ridley Scot would be ashamed of himself, he has no understanding of the time, the place, the story and least of all the characters. He's not even slightly redeemed by some revelatory cinematic trickery that he learned whilst making commercials all those years ago.
Russel Crowe is an embarrassment, he has to be one of the worst actors at work today. His accent is wrong, he's boring, bloated and smackable from beginning to end.
The supporting cast are completely wasted as the script and the structure are such a big bore. Anyone who mentions this film in the same breadth as The Godfather needs to stop speaking about films, period.