Causal ambiguity

Rating: 7/10 (10 November 2007)

If a top classic movie is made, it is often unsure how this came about. That is, if all the right disciplines do all the right things this is just not enough. The positioning and interaction of these elements is what makes a true classic, so if for (a simple) example a camera move is followed by a shift in the story and the characters at the same time, you have an enhanced experience. It is more often than not the case that filmmakers are not aware how they made these interactions work. This causal ambiguity also explains why it is impossible to replicate just another classic by the same or different film makers. A top director is however more aware than the average ones of these interactions and often exercises a far larger control over the total work that in these days have turned into gigantic, almost non-manageable projects. The late Kubrick comes to mind as the genius and control freak in this regard, and he also let his movies evolve, thus avoiding the trap of rigidities and able to adjust the interactions.
Ridley Scott is one of the top directors of our time. American Gangster contains dozens of interesting shots and perfect location shooting and set building. Ridley Scott makes every scene worth looking at in itself. The apartments in a dilapidated neighborhood looking like prisons, the framing of the first shots (those with Bumpy) and the last shot in the transfer of one area into another, the many references to other (gangster) movies (Scarface, Goodfellas for example) are examples of his great talent. Also in storytelling, he refrains from presenting the story in a simple manner and let us work to combine some of the pieces.
But the story and especially the script is far too linear for Scott's talent. In Gladiator he could expand on the notion of the arena as a theater, in Matchstick Men he could play with the audience in tricking them in a movie about tricks, in Kingdom of Heaven he could link it to the Islam-Christianity dichotomy. But here, there are just some loose elements like Vietnam, drug-addicted NY neighborhoods and a black imitating Italians. Steven Zaillian's script is just badly written, not able to make this story work beyond the obvious and also contains some unnecessary elements that detract from the story (the love story for example. Next to this I find it hard to believe that this was edited by Pietro Scalia, who did the fantastic editing in Black Hawk Down and Gladiator.
Denzel Washington has never topped his performance in Training Day and is unable to do something extra for this movie; Russell Crowe tries to replicate his performance from A Beautiful Mind, and both are also not able to surpass the limitations of a weak script. American Gangster contains luckily an enormous amount of side roles that are true revelations.
So in the end American Gangster is in itself a decent movie, but pales in comparison to the movies it tries to build on, such as Goodfellas/Casino, Cidade de Deus and The Godfather.