Get ready to be submersed...

Rating: 8/10 (19 November 2007)

While I usually enjoy long movies, I wondered halfway through if I could enjoy this. But the movie quickly re-gained my interest and was intently interested for the rest of the night. The submersion into 60's Harlem gangster life was thorough; however this movie spends too little time showing what drugs "really" did to people during that time. The glamor and glitz was on the screen too often I thought, and I found myself rooting for Lucas at times. I won't say this is "typical" for Hollywood's glorification of violence and criminals, but it was getting close. Crowe delivered a convincing performance; I didn't even notice any Australian accent slipping through at all. Denzel Washington runs away with the story, even with a good supporting cast. I'm of the camp that says Denzel is Denzel in all his movies, pretty much the same character all the time, but this sort of movie calls for that guy. He was very believable as Frank Lucas (not that I knew the real Lucas).