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Printer-Friendly ModeGangster too little, too late
November 5, 2007 —
The title alone, American Gangster, is telling of director Ridley Scott's intent with his latest film. The problem Scott runs into is that the American gangster genre was already reclaimed by Scorsese last year with The Departed. This fact leaves Gangster trying too hard to be more than it is.
The film is based on the real-life Frank Lucas (played by Denzel Washington), a Harlem kingpin in the 60's and 70's. Lucas is a notorious, and at times frightening, criminal, but a charismatic and loving family man. Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe), the struggling cop assigned to bring Lucas down, is chivalrous in his occupation, but less-than-reputable in his personal life. It is through these principals that the film parallels the two on their inevitable collision course.
With these two formidable actors, the film is fun to watch. While I'm tired of Washington playing the same roles over and over, he's very good at it. Crowe is really in the same boat. While Roberts is somewhat of a new character for him, he's a pretty straightforward one.
In the end, it is more of the script's fault than the actors, as the roles remain rather static. Lucas seems to be the embodiment of the American Dream through his success, but his success is through illegal means and this symbolism gets lost. Are we meant to empathize with such a corrupt character, or the cop trying to convict him? Both? If that is the case, neither character is fleshed out enough to do so.
Another problem is the pacing of the film. At times, I was truly engaged. There was a great bit leading up to a drug-raid, and I did enjoy some of the confrontational moments between Lucas and other minor characters. There was just too much down-time in between some of these moments where no real character development was going on. Lucas's extravagant lifestyle and spending doesn't tell me anything more about the character, and I've seen dozens of films where a lead detective meticulously plans to catch the crook to no avail. These things didn't clue me in to who these men are or why they do what they do.
Mind you, the film is a decently entertaining time at the cinema. The real problem is that Scott clearly wanted it to be more than that, but the script wasn't strong enough to make it so. If he would have settled for making an entertaining crime drama, he could have fixed the pacing issues, and the character development wouldn't be necessary. This could have been an incredibly entertaining film with a lot of energy and some really great action moments. As it is, I could feel the film striving for something greater again and again, which only proved its inability to do so all the more.