American Great Movie

Rating: 9/10 (4 December 2008)

I knew next to nothing about this movie before renting it, and when I saw that it was running at close to three hours, I expected to be colossally bored by another vanity epic. But then I was riveted, my head blew off and my eyes melted. I sat transfixed in front of the tube not thinking about the time, and after the titles rolled I started to watch the director's-comments version until I was forced into bed because the birdies started to tweet outside. What a movie.
Ridley Scott simply strikes a right balance between action and authenticity. It's like a triple whopper with extra onions which is entirely made out of organically harvested yogurt. OK, that sounds gross but you get the point.
While it's the many garish scenes of action, sex and brutality that keep the viewer's interest (let's be honest, folks), many of the subtler scenes stuck with me. For example when crime don Lucas buys his mother a lavish home (a gangster movie staple, big gangsters always buy their mum a nice house), there is also a brief scene in which he shows her a dresser he has had made for her, which is a copy of one which the family has had repossessed many years ago. Or later there is a brief scene where his mother tries to set him straight for planning to murder a bunch of cops. Or how Lucas chats up his later wife. These scenes strike home amidst all the mayhem.
Another thing that this movie gets right is that it shows Lucas as being, maybe very clever, but not a criminal mastermind. He does make mistakes, and they do come after him. And while he may think of himself as a gentleman, we also see his unbridled brutality lurking under this veneer.
Two things which I didn't "buy" from this movie:
* the scene where Frank Lucas shoots a rival point blank in the head and in coram publico: that would be a pretty stupid thing to do as murder isn't exactly legal, not even in New York City, and Lucas isn't stupid.
* Richie Roberts and the women: Roberts is the hard man women think is good to find. I get it. But the endless stream of foxy attorneys and salacious stewardesses who beg him to "Furp me like a cop" is just a bit too puerile (or maybe I'm jealous).
Anyway, great movie.