In all honesty, American Gangster was mediocrity at it's finest.

Rating: 5/10 (17 October 2007)

The film starts out with some fire. Then it turns into a dialogue ridden, action deprived, prolonged film about drug trafficking and those who oppose it. Many of the story lines are unnecessary and bloat the film.
The acting was okay. Denzel was, well, Denzel. You've seen it before; it's just he's in a 60-70s suit. Russell Crowe was good because he was a perfect match for the part. However, it's not his best performance and if he's nominated I'll be surprised. Lots of cameos and a hell of a cast behind them.
The action was good but it was sparse. Lots of stake outs with little to no action. There were little spurts of action through out the movie but the total time of action was probably around 10 minutes. That is, until the end. The action that did happen at the end - way too late - was top notch and lasted about 10 minutes. It was tense and well shot.
The resolution was perhaps the best part of the film, mainly because it happened at a faster pace than all the bloated and unnecessary building of the sides.
In all honesty, American Gangster was mediocrity at it's finest. Has some very good craftsmanship. You'd expect that from Ridley Scott. But, alas, it has some of the worst. The contrived dialogue and slow pace are the two worst things. The visible (I hope we got an early print.) boom mic was horrendous. It's like they didn't even try to edit that or cover it up. Sad.
The bottom line is that it's over-hyped. It'll make it's money, but I think it could have been so much more. But then, that's the definition of mediocrity.