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American Gangster
Ridley Scott directing a New York organised crime movie, Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe starring - I might as well slap 5 stars on it straight away. Hold your horses though, something's not right...
I blame Martin Scorsese. We all know his mob movies, specifically last year's "Best Picture" The Departed and so we fall into the groove when we find another one, expecting stand-offs, shootouts and general wise-guy action. In American Gangster it just doesn't happen - it's a more cerebral and, dare I say it, realistic depiction of a crime lord's life. There's the occasional moment of violence, often pleasingly unexpected, but nowhere near the body count of a Godfather clone. Had I been pre-armed with this information, like you are now, I might've warmed to it a lot more - however as it was I was rather ruing the bladder-testing running time of over two and a half hours.
American Gangster has an image problem. Whilst superficially appearing like a Godfather, in reality it's more of a Donnie Brasco. Worth watching, but not for everyone. I enjoyed this film: I think the average moviegoer will enjoy it: Testosterone Satisfaction Rating: - whilst there's very little action to speak of, there are enough fleeting glimpses of naked female flesh to keep you on your toes. To enjoy this film you should be: aware of its surprisingly action-free nature.
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It's some time through the movie before you realise. Everything's ticking over nicely, Denzel's on top form as usual,
playing an enterprising drug baron who's inherited the Harlem empire with Russell Crowe as the lone unbent copper on his
tail, but then after about 90 minutes you start to wonder if it's ever going to take off. And it doesn't.
The other area where experience counts against American Gangster is with the appearance of Cuba Gooding Jr. I've never
seen what others see in him - when he collected Best Supporting Actor for Jerry Maguire, I couldn't have been more
surprised if it had gone to Roland Rat's mate Kevin the Gerbil.
Since then he's been in such mainstream comedies as Boat Trip and Rat Race, and I don't think it's unduly
harsh to say he was rubbish in all of them. Here he plays a club owner who deals with Denzel and gets shirty when his
business practices are questioned. Now, you know when you see a kid trying to be cool and with-it ... like this
season's Big Brother when Emily got kicked off for using the N word ... you can't help but laugh at the oblivious
patheticness. That's what Cuba Gooding looks like here. He's so tragically bad at being the hard guy that it shatters
the illusion - particularly when he's acting against Denzel who's so good at it. Denzel wisely makes his character
laugh in an internally patronising way, as if giving a silent signal to the audience that he shares the joke with us,
and so the scene actually gets away with it, but really, stop hiring him please.
