Enjoyable cop-and-crime romp

Rating: 6/10 (30 November 2007)

Ridley Scott's long-awaited American Gangster runs for 2 hours and 33 minutes; it's a long and slow affair, and I'm not saying that this is a bad thing, because it keeps an enjoyable level of suspense and crime-drama from the very opening of Denzel's Frank Lucas enlightening his victim before emptying his clip in him to the majestic double-ending of church-choir's Amazing Grace and Crowe & Washington finally sharing the screen with vital excitement. So, American Gangster handles its runtime with quite an ease, but - Scott handles a classical cop & criminal topic here, and this requires more of a director in 2007's Hollywood than back in the 70ties; critics and audience (or at least critics) have become more demanding in what's a good thriller and what's not; in other words, Scott needs so show that he's got something fresh, vital and inspired to offer, and this is sadly where American Gangster falls short. Scott's earlier movies as Alien and Blade Runner and even Gladiator pulled off much of its exuberance with its visual spectacularity and greatness, and by no means, American Gangster looks terrific - but couldn't Scott have used his fine visuals even more to his advantage? He doesn't, and instead he focuses on making it more straight-forward, solid and even a bit typical look at the 60ties/70ties New York crime scene. Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe steers the show with sterling performances; Crowe's earnest cop who struggles over his wife-and-son situation in his private life is the only pure cop in a corrupted organization - and Washington's Lucas is a different, calm-smoked and cool up-and-rising gangster who wears a suit not a coat, and shoots one guy instead of six.
Mainly this is an enjoyable gangster-romp that features all of the classical gangster-elements of drive-by-shooting, cigar-smoking, family-issues, beautiful women, cheap drugs (drugs is after all American Gangster's main theme) and cops drinking coffee. And with all these clichéd-elements in place, why doesn't Scott pull up his sleeve and keeps those Aces coming?- no, he doesn't use any of his "new" tricks, he keeps both Crowe and Washington down on the carpet, not giving none of them great material and fine show-offs, good material yes, but never great. And there's plenty of supporting roles here, all sterling (Lucas' brother, Mr. Stringer Bell from HBO's the Wire, Lucas' wife to mention some) and American Gangster works utterly fine when it becomes brutal and effective, and this is mainly the two leads operating with great depth and substance, Crowe breathes more life into his character than the script could even hope for, as soon as Crowe opens his mouth in this you know that he'll do great. And American Gangster's brutality is its upper hand, it showcases Harlem and NY perfectly with coldness, grit and glory - from time to time it feels a bit like 21st Century's version of Serpico. And important to say; though it's disappointing classicé-twitch, the movie's firmness and entertainment makes it very good in the final climax. This is a grand achievement for Washington and Crowe, not for Scott - he repeats himself and steers away from originality - but ultimately Washington & Crowe wins, not often does great performances cover over for its director's faults, but American Gangster's does.