"American Gangster"

Rating: 6/10 (30 June 2012)

In "Amican Gangster" we have an action/crime/drama movie which is a biographical depiction of the life of a guy named Frank Lucas(played by Denzel Washington). We follow Lucas (who existed in real life) as he becomes some kind of heroin kingpin in a matter of years after going overseas to South East Asia and sending some of those drugs back in to the United States. As a result of his journey & what he came back to the U.S.A. with, the streets of America became more downtrodden & full of crime & violence than ever before.
Now as far as the movie is concerned, there is next to nothing in the way of character development for the main character in the movie, in other words, there is hardly anything that describes anything about who Frank Lucas was before the time of the beginning of the movie. This leaves the movie feeling incomplete from the very beginning. There are quit a few big named actors (Such a as Russel Crowe & Cuba Gooding Jr.) and a "who's who" of the music industry list as supporting actors and extras (RZA, Common, T.I., Anthony Hamilton). Anyway, the plethora of high profile actors & music stars did not make the movie any better. Perhaps it made the move way more hyped up and anticipated in order to ensure box office success. Anyhow, the glamorization of drug dealing and the glamorization of the insensitivity that it takes to sell heroin to thousands of people knowing the disastrous effects that it has on their lives, is what this movie is basically all about. Why would any big time director hire an all star cast to do this? I don't know. Maybe the director got a kick out of doing that. Other than that, we get to see the average police vs. bad guy scenes and of course, the crooked cops are prevalent in here too. Besides that, Denzel Washington DOES NOT seem to be casted well for this role. Even though this movie may be based on a true story, something seems to be way off in seeing an "African American" heroin dealer in the 60's walking around the streets and moving through different social circles & gatherings while talking like he's a freedom fighter who's being responsible by showing his people how to make a better life by selling drugs at the expense of the rest of society.