half-baked mob saga

Rating: 6/10 (28 February 2009)

'American Gangster' has in place all the ingredients for being one of these big and successful American sagas that Hollywood knows to do too well. The film is built around the true story of an interesting character - Frank Lucas, one of the first Afro-American mob heads, a self made gangster but also a businessman and a man of family, it enjoys the presence on screen two leading actors of Oscar fame, it is directed by a well known name, and even screen time exceeds the two and a half hours, which became kind of normal for the big American films recently.
And yet, Ridley Scott's film fails, and the failure is to be found in the two many inconsistencies in building his characters, and in the lack of success of making the story in the film both successful and true to reality. Denzel Washington's interior light and dignity plays an ambiguous role here, we know and like him too much from other scene appearances to really get shocked of his Frank Lucas's evilness, he is more convincing when shown taking his mom to church, or building a business plan or even turning down his accomplices, than when killing a man for to impose his power in a scene which seems out of the character's space. Russell Crowe as detective Richie Roberts is on the contrary more convincing when dealing with his personal troubles, and less when trying to be the on corruptible character who nails Lucas. A typical case of two excellent actors that do a good job but do not raise to the levels of excellency we expect from them.
While the parallel lives of the two characters advance on parallel tracks, the tension is built towards the final confrontation that is meant to be the climax of the movie. We are filled in with too many standard and expected stuff from other more minor movies - for example the juxtaposition of the failed family and parental life of the 'good' detective vs. the devoted family life of the gangster. If this is meant to be kind of a social comment - the good guy is paying with his personal life the price of being right, while the bad guy is the one apparently realized, well, this sounds kind of trivial and moralistic. It is only the usage of the TV sequences that puts the story in the perspective of the 60s and 70s and the ravaging effects of the drugs trade on the American society. Nothing new or unexpected here however.
'American Gangster' could have been one of these big American sagas. Or maybe not, maybe we had too many of these on screens in the last ten years and we should rather take a break.