Spoilers for what? Nothing interesting happens.

Rating: 5/10 (23 November 2007)

The latest Ridley Scott/Russell Crowe collaboration reminds me a lot of Serpico (1973.) You've got the star talent (i.e. Crowe in place of Pacino), the premise of an honest policeman working nearly alone to expose corruption in the police force and the backdrop of 1970s New York to do it in. Also, like Serpico, it fails to deliver in most respects. Much of the film concerns Denzel Washington as the eponymous American Gangster Frank Lucas, a violent criminal from Harlem with a monopoly on the heroin trade in New York. Russell Crowe is Richie Roberts, the narcotics officer tasked with bringing him down. Sounds exciting doesn't it? Well it isn't. At 157 minutes long, 'Gangster was always going to have a job keeping the audience's attention for the entire time. However, it didn't even keep my attention for half the time. The various threads at the start of the film take over an hour to actually intertwine with each other, by which time I didn't care anymore. Even then, there's no payoff until around near the end with a pseudo-Godfather montage of Richie destroying Lucas' entire operation while Lucas attends church with his mother. I for one expected Lucas to go down in a blaze of frenzied violence inside the church (indeed a Denzel-Training Day death was all I was waiting for,) thus salvaging some of the previously wasted 2 hours but no, it's not that kind of film. Instead, Frank Lucas provides evidence against all the corrupt narcotics policemen in New York and gets to serve a fifth of his prison time for it. So basically the story is 'Policeman arrests baddie who rats on other baddies and goes to prison but not for long.' How disappointing.
As for the characters, Denzel Washington fluctuates from being a cool, controlled, intelligent and observant customer to a Tony Montana-esquire psychopath who repeatedly attacks his brothers and cousins if things go wrong. Indeed, the only cool instance worthy of remembrance by Lucas is where he shoots a rival without hesitation in a street in broad daylight. If only the rest of the film had been full of these little gems. Instead we are treated to the estrangement and divorce proceedings of Richie Roberts from his wife (yawn) and constant reminders that as an honest cop he has to do everything himself, with no help from the suits upstairs. Josh Brolin puts in a trite performance as one of the cops on the take, adding nothing except a homosexual moustache to the proceedings. For once Cuba Gooding Jr is competent in his role, which is the best one could hope for. Finally, the last individual who sticks in the mind long enough to form an opinion of is Armand Assante, who is actually rather good in his hunting jacket and Vito Corleone mannerisms. Oh, and special mention has to go to the Vietnamese heroin plantation owner who looks like a drag queen in a suit.
Overall I would not waste my time with this again even if there are a couple of cool moments and the clothes look splendid. Considering the extensive hype and promise surrounding the film, the quote by Frank Lucas "The loudest man in the room is also the weakest man in the room" sums up American Gangster nicely.