Bravo Excellent Drama

Rating: 10/10 (12 November 2007)

Ridley Scott directs Denzell Washington & Russell Crowe in a factually based story about the Mob set in the late 1960's through the mid 1970's. The script is excellently written & the film is very well directed by Scott. This is by far the best I have seen this year & has the potential to be the best picture.
Washington is superb (best actor) playing a real life crime czar in the Bronx during the late 1960's. The opening scene has his teacher who mentored him die of ironically, natural causes due to his heart stopping. At the wake, Washington makes clear his intention to take over.
Once past this, Washington proceeds to do just that. A lot of prime news reel footage from the period & a couple of recreations of actual events serve as backdrops to help tell the story of his rise to the top. Meanwhile, Rusell Crowes Special Investigative unit starts off slowly in pursuit of not just stopping Washingtons success but also of trying to rein in a lot of bad cops on the force & on the take in the NYC police department.
This film has a lot of excellent support including a surprisingly strong supporting actress performance by veteran actress Ruby Dee as Washingtons mom. At about 2 hours & 45 minutes the film is a little long but it never gets bogged down or boring. In fact, it would be difficult to make the film any shorter & hold the entire story together. This is factually based drama at its best.
Oscar blew it last year by not nominating this but since the main stream media is still racist & years behind an American society that is not racist, they selected No Country For Old Men, a slasher movie for best picture last year. This proves that with the Academy- Jason Lives!