American Gangster (2007)

Today I decided to get to my movie a little earlier than usual, and because I had the extra time, I decided to go for the Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe drama American Gangster. This movie is nearly 3 hours long, so I knew I was going to be in it for the long haul. I was hoping it would be cool with lots of action to keep me engaged for all that time. Knowing gangster movies though, there's usually a lot of politics involved in getting the characters established. So did it thrill, or did it put me to sleep? Find out after the jump!


As is my tradition, I'll go over some of the story for you. American Gangster, first of all, is based on real events of the late 60s and early 70s. Denzel Washington stars as Frank Lucas, a bodyguard for a very influential man, who is also tied in quite strongly with organized crime. When his boss and mentor dies, he decides to take it upon himself to use what he learned and become a man of power himself. To say he was successful would be an understatement. He is soon a major player in the drug trade and even the Italian mafia is having to make deals with him. Meanwhile, as Frank is rising to power, one of the few cops who isn't crooked in New York is making a name for himself as such. His name is Richie Roberts and he's played by Russell Crowe. Richie is put in charge of the newly formed Narcotics Division and he makes it his goal in life to not only catch the one responsible for these new drugs, but to also put an end to all the police corruption if he can.

Frank starts gathering his crime family

While it isn't new for me to see Denzel Washington in the role of the bad guy, I'm still more used to seeing him as a father just trying to do the right thing, or at least something like that. That being said, this seemed to be a really good role that could ease me into seeing him more as a villain. While in Training Day he was pretty much just insane and violent, in this film he is generally calm, cool, and collected. He doesn't seem to do anything that hasn't been calculated out and the consequences weighed. His character also had very strong family ties, and so it still sort of overlapped with my previous preconceptions of his roles, except now he was a drug kingpin and the head of a newly developed crime family.

Frank heads up river in South East Asia to get his drugs from the source

Russell Crowe had what I found to be an interesting role. Actually, at the start of the film I couldn't care less what his character of Richie was up to, because all I wanted to see was the birth of Frank's new empire. What I found interesting is that he had a very good character arc, going from a little out of it, to sure of himself and becoming far more responsible in his own personal life at the same time. I ended up really liking the conflict between not only Frank and the corrupt cops, but Richie and the corrupt cops. I also liked how he became head of his own division and shaped it how he wanted to clean up crime and corruption in all forms.

Frank isn't afraid to threaten someone in broad daylight in full view of the public. That's how he is.

While I liked seeing both main characters build up their own power houses, it took a heck of a long time to get there. I can't help but think this movie could have been shortened up somehow. At one point I was feeling like the movie had to be getting near its end, but when I checked the time remaining I still had about an hour to go. Sure there was a lot of interesting scenes and developments, and Frank is almost always a total badass who doesn't take crap from anyone around him, I was never totally engrossed in what was going on. This resulted in me really feeling the length of the movie and starting to wish it would just end soon.

There's no mistaking that American Gangster is a very good movie. I wasn't familiar with the true story of Frank Lucas myself, so I was kind of lucky that I didn't know exactly how the story was going to end. Speaking of which, I really liked the ended! Denzel Washington was great and I loved the moments when someone offends him and he quickly and decisively goes into action and "handles" the person in question. He was cold and ruthless, but also somehow likable. I guess that's just the power of Denzel. I would definitely recommend this movie, but just be prepared for the 3 hours of mobster crime drama you're going to be thrust into.