A Look Back: American Gangster
History Can Hurt a Legacy
What I remember most about the release of American Gangster has nothing to do with the story itself. It doesn’t have to deal with any scene or moment within the movie. It doesn’t even deal with Jay-Z’s concept album that was inspired by the film. The thing I remember most about this movie was looking at the box office numbers the weekend it came out. Now, I’m not positive if this was the first time I ever looked at the box office numbers, but it feels like it was. I remember it vividly because at the time it was the best opening for both Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe, two movie stars at the peak of their career.
After the release of American Gangster, looking at the box office estimates every Sunday morning became a regular routine for me. It was like looking at the final box score for a NBA game. The thing that guaranteed good business at the box office back in 2007 was almost always star power. This was at a time when studios like Universal, who released American Gangster, would spend hundreds of millions of dollars on the development and production of a period crime drama as long as it had a great director and stars behind it because they knew that’s what brought audiences to the theaters.
Denzel Washington was one of the big stars that my friends and I grew up watching. Growing up in the South, we probably saw Remember the Titans multiple times a year, because our school teachers were fine with showing a movie like that. Denzel was an actor we all admired when I was in high school, as was Russell Crowe. Crowe was just coming off a phenomenal acting run around the time of the film’s release, releasing ten movies in a eight year span. During that time, Crowe received three Academy Award nominations (and one win), five Golden Globe nominations (and one win), and a number of box office successes. Very few actors have been able to go on a run of that nature ever since.
Like Scarface before it, American Gangster gained popularity within the rap culture at the time. Jay-Z’s concept album regarding the film helped that tremendously. The difference was that this time it was an African-American male in the lead role. The story of Frank Lucas, the real-life character that Denzel Washington portrayed, was something audiences were after. People wanted to see the “true” story of how an African-American man, played by one the greatest actors of our time, was able to rise up and do something that no other man in the American mafia was able to do…even if it was all illegal.
Re-Watch
Even though the story of American Gangster is lacking in a number of spots, the film is held together by captivating performances by the film’s leads and the phenomenal recreation of 1960s/1970s New York City. Actors like Washington, Crowe, and Ruby Dee are able to do great work with what they are given, but after the movie stopped, I wondered what else they could have done if the story was tweaked just a little bit more.
It is always a struggle to pull off a movie that has two protagonists. Some might say that Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington) is the antagonist and Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe) is the protagonist or vice-versa, but that isn’t the case. The story of Lucas and Roberts are fairly separate throughout most of the film. Steve Zaillain’s script and Ridley Scott’s direction is trying to create a 1970s version of Michael Mann’s Heat, but it isn’t as compelling.
Once the stories of Lucas and Roberts begin to intertwine, that is where American Gangster begins to gain its momentum. I was losing interest within the first hour of the movie, but once Lucas brought his family up from North Carolina to join his “business” in Harlem and Roberts created his special task force to fight the war on drugs, the story started to take shape. I wonder if my reaction to the first half of the film would be the same if it was just trimmed down a bit. For the first hour, there was too much ping-ponging back and forth to set up the backstories of Frank Lucas and Richie Roberts, and the information we received didn’t help as much as it should have.
Russell Crowe is actually pretty great in this role. His role isn’t as flashy as Washington’s, but he helps hold the movie together. The introduction of his character is actually a really good way to introduce a character. In my previous Look Back article, I talked about how Tony Gilroy introduces Tilda Swinton’s character in Michael Clayton, and Zaillain does something similar with Crowe. Crowe’s character is introduced to us during a vulnerable moment, just like Swinton was in Michael Clayton. He is taking law classes at night, while also working as a police officer during the day. When we first see him, he has to get in front of the class to argue a mock case and we can easily tell that he feels nervous and out of place. From that moment on we are with this character. The only issue is that him being a lawyer isn’t developed well. He makes one more mention of it, but then two hours later he is suddenly prosecuting Frank Lucas as a practicing lawyer. We missed all of his struggles trying to become a lawyer while heading up a special police task force. We even miss him quitting law enforcement to become a lawyer. It just happens, and we’re left to think, “Oh, okay. I guess he is a lawyer now.” If this had been more developed, then the moment he had to build up his courage for his opening statements against Lucas would have been a lot more impactful. Instead, the moment falls flat.
Visual style of the film is the element that makes this film really standout. Ridley Scott and his team were able to create a believable 60s and 70s for these character to live in. One of the biggest things I keep hearing myself say when I watch a movie that deals with a specific time period or location is, “It looks too clean.” It always bothers me. Some time periods look dirty and that isn’t always portrayed. American Gangster isn’t a film that fails at that. It’s a dirty, grungy crime drama. Ridley Scott and his director of photography, the late Harris Savides, definitely take from the work Francis Ford Coppola and Gordon Willis did on The Godfather series. They let their characters live in the shadows.
Now, let’s talk about the acting for a moment. Watch this scene…
The interrogation scene between Frank and Richie is easily the best scene in the entire film and it comes on with only around twenty minutes left to in the story. The scene isn’t flashy in its shot selection, but the situation doesn’t call for that. This scene is a chess game between two characters (and two great actors). This scene is one of the few times we really see Frank Lucas with his back against the wall. It is a rock bottom moment for him, and that makes Washington’s performance great. He actually reveals something about himself, and we begin to understand why he is the way he is. Without Crowe’s performance, however, Denzel’s wouldn’t be as great. He needs that partner. Crowe’s character, Richie Roberts, finally has the power over Frank Lucas and Frank knows it. Roberts doesn’t have to talk because he already knows he has the upper hand. This conversation is the moment when Roberts and Lucas begin to bond, and it sets up the last major sequence of the movie.
Denzel Washington is one of those actors that’s a powerhouse in every single movie he is in. American Gangster is no different. Washington said that when he took the role of Frank Lucas, he did not want to glorify Lucas and his actions. He wanted to show that if you lead a life like Lucas, you’ll pay for it. Washington is attracted to roles like this, and this theme is present throughout a number of his films. He wants to show that living a criminal life leads to punishment.
The only problem is, though, that it’s hard not to glorify the character of Frank Lucas when someone like Denzel Washington is playing him. Washington is one of those actors that you are going to gravitate to no matter what type of character he plays. What also doesn’t help, is that a lot of people who were around during the peak of the real Frank Lucas’ career feel that the character of Lucas was not portrayed in an accurate light. Right around the time of the film’s Oscar campaign, information began to be released about just how much of it was inaccurate. Sterling Johnson Jr., a special narcotics prosecutor at the time during the Lucas reign, said in an interview that “The picture is 1 percent reality and 99 percent Hollywood…Frank was illiterate, Frank was vicious, violent. Frank was everything Denzel Washington was not.’’ The real Richie Roberts, who was actually consultant on the film and is now a good friend to Lucas, wonders if the film helped glorify a villain. This, in my opinion, is one of the reasons why American Gangster hasn’t had as great a legacy as the other crime drama films that came before it. The actual history has hurt the film’s overall legacy. In a way, it made a real-life villain into a hero in the eyes of mainstream viewers.
Is It Important Today?
It is over a decade later and Denzel Washington is just as relevant today as he was in 2007. Washington is one of those last remaining movie stars that can consistently release a successful movie that is not tied to a franchise. Since American Gangster, Washington’s résumé is mostly full of successful action films like Unstoppable, Safe House, and The Equalizer. The three non-action movies he has released in the past ten years have also garnered him a lot of attention. The Great Debaters was not a major financial success, but it was definitely a critical success, and it was Washington’s second time stepping behind the camera as a director. The other two non-action films Washington made were Robert Zemeckis’ Flight and his third directorial outing, Fences. He garnered an Academy Award nomination for his performance in Flight, and he also received two Academy Award nominations for Fences (one for his performance and one for his role as producer). He also won a Tony Award for Best Leading Actor for his performance in the Broadway version of Fences. It is easy to say that Washington is one of the greatest and most prolific actors in the past twenty-five years, but American Gangster is still his most financially successful film. Due to the film’s success, I believe American Gangster was the film that helped solidify Washington’s mainstream appeal to audiences and it has continued to carry over to today.
Russell Crowe’s career after American Gangster, however, has not been as successful as it was prior to the 2007 film. Yes, Crowe has been involved in a number of high-profile films like Les Miserables, and Man of Steel, but he has not come close to having the run he had before the release of American Gangster. He is still a wonderful actor and he has released a number of good films in the past ten years, including the highly-underrated State of Play. He has also released a couple of financially successful films, like Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood and Darren Aronfsky’s Noah, where he was the lead role in both. But, he has received zero nominations from both the Academy Awards and Golden Globes since 2005. Crowe is still a great actor, and it’s not like he’s had a bad career since the release of American Gangster, but there is a major difference between Russell Crowe’s career pre-2007 and post-2007.
Since the release of American Gangster, Ridley Scott’s films have been a little hit-and-miss both financially and critically. He has released major box office hits like Robin Hood and Prometheus, but both were met with mixed reviews from the likes of fans and critics. Then he has released films like Body of Lies, The Counselor, and Exodus: Of Gods and Kings that received little to no love from American audiences or critics, but were fairly successful overseas. Scott’s sole financial and critical success since the release of American Gangster came in 2015 with The Martian. For many, it was Scott’s return to form. Anchored by a superb performance from Matt Damon and a great script by Drew Goddard, Scott was able to make one of the best films of his entire career. Two years later, however, he would have a little bit of a mediocre year with the release of Alien: Covenant and All the Money in the World.
One of the major signs of a great director is someone who can spot and cast talented unknown actors. Directors like Ridley Scott, Steven Spielberg, and Christopher Nolan are known for their visually epic films, but people forget at how great they are at showcasing talented actors, both old and new. They know that filling even the smallest of roles is as important as casting the lead. I feel by doing this they are able to give their films a whole other layer that isn’t present in films made by less-experienced directors. Ridley Scott’s American Gangster is no different. Besides Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe, Scott had a number of known actors at the time in the film, including Carla Gugino, Cuba Gooding, Jr., and Ruby Dee (who actually received an Oscar nomination for her performance). But, the film’s cast also included future Oscar nominee Chiwetel Ejiofor, future Oscar nominee John Hawkes, Idris Elba, RZA, T.I., Common, and Josh Brolin, who had a major comeback in 2007. Hell, even Norman Reedus pops up as a detective in one scene. The majority of these actors are people you constantly see today in both film and television. For some of them, American Gangster was the biggest film of their career at the time. They all bring something to the film, and it is no surprise that they would later become successful.
FINAL VERDICT
American Gangster is one of the best films in the past decade that captures the grit and grunginess of New York City in 1960s and 1970s New York City. When it comes to the look of the film, American Gangster feels like it could have been released during that classic era of filmmaking. The acting from Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe, and the supporting cast is superb. The three biggest issues of the film, however, are the script, the length of the film, and the accuracy of the story. If the film was more accurate in the portrayals of the major players, then this film would probably hold up a lot more. If the movie was shorter and the script developed the characters and story in a much more concise way, then this would be a more impactful film.
Re-Evaluation Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
