GREAT SCOTT
There’s been some debate where we are as to just how good a film Ridley Scott’s American Gangster really is. I loved it. Others here didn’t. I thought part of its beauty hinged on us never quite knowing who to side with in the film. I wanted to love Denzel (playing Frank Lucas, the Harlem-based drug lord who, rumour has it, was making over $1 million a day from selling heroin shipped directly from Asia by the US military during the VIetnam years) but he just kept doing annoying stuff. You know, little things like reshaping his cousin’s head with the roof of a grand piano. Not much, but enough to make me think twice.
In truth, there are, admittedly, flaws to the film. Both leads, Denzel and Russell Crowe, who plays the cop that eventually bring Lucas down, are perhaps a little dull, and the movie takes a while to gather pace. But I left the cinema with that unmistakable feeling of awe I get from films that make me wonder at the sheer effort and skill required to create them. Visually, like all Scott productions, it’s stunning, but as a whole, as an all-singing, all-kicking movie experience, is it a genuine silver-screened embodiment of imagination, creativity and determination, or does it fall some way short?
All those in favour...
In truth, there are, admittedly, flaws to the film. Both leads, Denzel and Russell Crowe, who plays the cop that eventually bring Lucas down, are perhaps a little dull, and the movie takes a while to gather pace. But I left the cinema with that unmistakable feeling of awe I get from films that make me wonder at the sheer effort and skill required to create them. Visually, like all Scott productions, it’s stunning, but as a whole, as an all-singing, all-kicking movie experience, is it a genuine silver-screened embodiment of imagination, creativity and determination, or does it fall some way short?
All those in favour...
