American Gangster lives up to its name, but that’s not necessarily setting the bar very high. If you were to leave the cinema ten minutes before the film’s end, you’d come away with the sense that you’d just watched some outstanding performances in a well-executed piece that reeks of 1970s nostalgia. When you watch it to the end though, you walk out with the impression that both the screenwriter Steve Zaillian and director Ridley Scott missed a huge opportunity to make a much greater movie. Though there are far worse ways to pass two hours and forty minutes, the lack of originality of the premise results in a film that’s not terribly inventive.
(**Warning: Some minor spoilers are contained below.)
At its most basic level, this movie contains two tales. One details the rise of Frank Lucas (powerfully portrayed here by Denzel Washington) from Southern boy to Harlem drug kingpin, followed by his inevitable downfall. The other narrative trails Russell Crowe as Detective Richie Roberts, who sets out to catch Lucas, and ultimately blows apart a ring of widespread corruption within the NYPD.
The plot misses the mark several times, failing to explore what would seem to be the most compelling aspects of this true story. The tale of a drug dealer climbing to the top in a poverty stricken neighborhood is not novel, nor is chronicling it in film. But there are some things that we learn only at the very end of the film, bullet-points style, that could seemingly have made a much more intriguing focus for this movie. In addition, here’s a pretty stunning argument that’s just barely made by the film: Lucas’ success in smuggling copious amounts of heroin into the U.S. from Vietnam and amassing a fortune selling it on the streets of Harlem had less to do with his ability to outsmart the law, and more do with the fact that white cops in the late ’60s simply could not believe an African American could be this clever. Therefore, what could’ve been a springboard to examine the greater race-relations issue is instead left to a few passing remarks. By failing to explore the shortsightedness of the police, Lucas’ accomplishments are unnecessarily glorified. But, haven’t enough movies about crime splendor already been made?
Alas, while two and a half hours of this film are devoted to showing how Lucas smuggled the drugs into the country, started a business, and spent the proceeds, the account of Lucas and Roberts’ eventual collaboration is assigned a half-hearted ten minute montage to close the film. The two phenomenal lead actors deliver stunning performances, but their characters are never in the same room until the final minutes of the movie. That’s a real shame, because what passes between them in a few brief scenes is some of the finest acting seen onscreen in the last decade.
Perhaps Zaillian and Scott were just setting out to present Lucas the Drug Dealer, and if so they succeed, but there’s a much more interesting story here that remains untold. Everything but the last ten minutes of this movie has been done before. It was called Scarface, and it was a better film.
–Julia Clarke
