A film that needed to be made, but could have been better.

Rating: 7/10 (9 November 2007)

American Gangster is a film that tells two stories simultaneously: an African-American gangster who makes is living by means of illegal trade, extortion, and murder, but is a family man who makes family a high priority, and a cop who makes an honest living (too honest according to three-fourths of his department), but is not a good husband and father. The first thing most viewers will notice is likely to be the aforementioned parallels and contrasts with the two characters. This important aspect of the film is handled nicely and is one of its strong points. The main reason that this device works is that it does not get preachy and obvious; rather, the movie merely tells a story letting the viewer note each coincidence and similarity as well as the just-obvious-enough contrasts. Of course, Denzel Washington acts with a level of confidence and assuredness that a moral (as far as gangsters go) gangster who has risen above the Italian mafia would be likely to have. Whether or not the real Frank Lucas behaved in this way, I do not know, but the Frank Lucas in this film maintains his nonchalant demeanor even when he knows he is enjoying freedom that he knows he will not see again for quite some time, which surprised me because I was expecting to see a truly humanized and humiliated Frank Lucas at the end. Not to say it was a bad decision to continue Frank's cavalierly element into his downfall. After all, Washington is damn cool in this movie for lack of a better phrase. Why would anyone want to ruin that? In contrast, Russell Crowe nails his portrayal of Richie Roberts by giving him the lack of assuredness that a cop who is not trusted by his department and cannot seem to raise a family would be likely to have. It is not until he meets face-to-face with Frank Lucas, that he reaps the fruits of his honesty, and realizes that his fight was worth fighting. Another bonus in this film are the scenes in Vietnam when Lucas is acquiring Grade-A product. The addition of this locale is refreshing because the scenes that take place there feel exotic and contrast with the urban setting of the majority of the film (and other gangster films as well). Despite all these positives, there is one significant draw-back, and that is the script. This film relies heavily on star-power, and I kept getting the feeling that there was not much effort put into the script. This film is missing the colorful characters and witty dialog of films like Miller's Crossing and The Godfather. I understand that this film is bounded by the confines of being a biopic, but the fact is that this is an original screenplay. There are a handful of memorable scenes here, but not enough lines. The humorous scene when Lucas guns down a man in public and sits back down to enjoy his meal is treated to the hackneyed line, "now what was I saying?" This script is not as clever as it should be. Nonetheless, its a great story with enough gravity to it to entertain, but it is not the awards-contender that I was expecting.