American Gangster is no Superfly

Rating: Null/10 (30 November 2007)

Denzel Washington, who has been on a streak of playing bad guys since "Training Day," was a good choice to star as Frank Lucas. However, he knows like I know that the star of "American Gangster" is really the legend of Frank Lucas. So instead of choosing to act, Washington just walked through the film. You'd think with the title, "American Gangster," the hero of the film would be Washington as Lucas. However the hero is Russell Crowe as Richie Roberts, the cop that busted him. Although the subject of the film was the rise of a black drug lord, it shifted back and forth to the story of a white cop who becomes a prosecutor, which quickly became tiresome and made the movie clock in at 2 hours and 37 minutes.
Why was it necessary for us to see scenes from Robert's personal life? Especially when Crowe was not interesting as Roberts. Why couldn't we meet him when the real life Lucas met him, which was when Lucas was incarcerated, not outside of a church where he just attended a funeral with his family? The time that it took to tell us about Robert's life could have been used to tell us more about Lucas' life. I learned more about his childhood from the BET series, "American Gangster," than the movie.
This is typical of Hollywood. Whenever it makes a movie about blacks, it has to be told from a white perspective, with a white actor who shares top billing (Crowe), and a white director (Ridley Scott in this case). Do you recall "Cry Freedom," the movie from 20 years ago that starred Washington as Steven Biko, the black activist? It also starred Kevin Kline as Donald Woods, the white South African journalist who befriended him, and who told the story. Two years later, Washington starred in "Glory," about the first company of black soldiers in the Civil War. He won an Oscar for his portrayal of one of them. The company was lead by a white colonel played by Mathew Broderick. Therefore he told the story.
As an African American and aficionado of the black cinema of the 1970s, I must say that it is important that we make our own movies about our subjects, directed by us. 35 years ago, a group of black businessmen financed the movie, "Superfly," directed by Gordon Parks, about a drug dealer who outsmarts the system and everybody else. Although it has the same subject as "American Gangster," "Superfly" was criticized for glamorizing the drug dealer when "American Gangster" is praised for it.
"American Gangster" takes place in the same period as "Superfly" but director Scott did not do a good job in restoring some locations to the way they looked 30 - 40 years ago. For example, when Washington as Lucas walked out of the Lenox Lounge in one scene, you can see the sign for Jimbo's located two doors away as clear as day. The restaurant has only been there for 5 years. Scott and company should have just covered the sign. The music in "American Gangster" was on target with the period, but the film lacked one major thing that "Superfly" had, and that's soul.