Still kind of a letdown, considering all the hype

Rating: 7/10 (18 October 2007)

How do I put this? American Gangster is good enough of a movie to distract you from the questions you'll find yourself asking about the plot, for a while at least. The movie is very well acted - Denzel and Crowe don't disappoint. They are, however, showing their age. Neither have the chiseled face bones, and Denzel looks like he has man-boobs in one scene when he has a wifebeater on. Not that this detracts from the movie in any way. Just don't expect Crowe to look like he did in Gladiator, though. I won't go through all the nice points because I was expecting it to be good (and it was), but I will talk about my biggest concern.
Getting past all the badassery Frank commits, we never get a clear picture of who Frank (Washington's character) is. He's charming in front of his family, and then all of a sudden he's bashing people's heads in the middle of a dinner party with his family members around. He plays with Crowe's character in one scene, then abruptly capitulates to him in the next (even though he says something to the effect of never giving up earlier in the movie). He lets his nephew, get involved in his dealings instead of telling him 'no', but hands out turkeys to the public. Sometimes an unpredictable/double sided character is good, but not here; when the poop hits the fan, so to speak, the audience has absolutely no idea what Frank is going to do because we are still not really sure which kind of person his really is deep down. I somehow expected this to dawn on me, but the ending happened before I could figure it out. I also wasn't sure if I should be rooting for Frank at the end. I mean, everybody roots for Denzel (even in Training Day, right?) because he's Denzel, and that kind of complicates things.
Expect a lengthy (in a good way) movie with an abrupt ending that has you wondering what the hell his family thinks of him now (I don't want to ruin the ending, so I won't say more than this). Also, don't expect as much action as is hinted at in the trailer. This isn't a gun-toting shoot-em-up, and the Italians mentioned in the trailer aren't starting a turf war or anything.
I did really like how the last scene was shot, though. Overall, if I were to set it up in one sentence, I would say that American Gangster is a great movie with a somewhat flawed ending.