Review: 'American Gangster' a Gem

Phil Villarreal - Arizona Daily Star

"American Gangster" is a film Tony Montana would watch after a night of wheeling, dealing and slaying. The Corleones or Sopranos would discuss it over Thanksgiving. Martin Scorsese will buy the movie's poster and frame it on his bedroom wall.

Director Ridley Scott brings the thunder in his epic, true-story-based tale of kingpin Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington), who rose from Harlem slums to undermine the drug cartels with a disgustingly innovative heroin trade, using soldier's caskets to smuggle product during the Vietnam conflict. Lucas rules with a quick and heavy hand, driven by paranoia and overwhelming pride. On his tail is detective Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe), a scrupulous cop who refuses to bow to a force plagued with corruption. He sternly exposes colleagues and mystifies even himself by turning in nearly a million dollars' worth of unmarked bills. As one of the few people Lucas can't buy, he's the criminal's most dangerous foe.

Roberts deals with a failed marriage and his inadequacies as a father. You pull for him to forge on with his career and succeed in bringing down Lucas, if only to prove that one can get ahead by playing by the rules. On the other hand, Lucas — a disciplined, astute businessman — provides just as much of a rooting interest. He flouts old-money authority and socially ingrained prejudice to instill his poor Southern family with wealth and power, allowing them to benefit from the drug epidemic rather than be exploited by it.

In many ways, "American Gangster" is the summation of the Hollywood gangster-film tradition that dates back to the Prohibition era, rolling up all the passion, tragedy and thought-provoking shades of gray the best of the genre offers. Scott wears his influences as Al Capone would a fedora. It's as though the director went through the history of great gangland films and patched together the best pieces to craft an antihero magnum opus.

Trumpet swells in somber moments recall "The Godfather." Washington's glare is as hot as the barrel of a tommy gun as he charismatically romps to ruthless excess in the fashion of James Cagney in "The Public Enemy" or Al Pacino in "Scarface."

Crowe's dogged detective is a veritable Eliot Ness, only with darker shadings to leaven the Boy Scout exterior. Scott takes a cue from the structure of Michael Mann's "Heat," playing out parallel stories of equally fascinating cop and criminal characters, setting up the climactic room-shaking confrontation.

Washington and Crowe are two of the finest actors of our day, but both actors tear into the material like young bucks hungering for their first paycheck. It's if they're attempting to outdo each other, harboring a rivalry as crucial and personal as that of their characters.

There's enough fire onscreen to singe your eyebrows if you sit in the first three rows, which is fine, because "American Gangster" is quite a lovely way to burn.

Rating:

American Gangster

****

• Rated: R for violence, pervasive drug content and language, nudity and sexuality.

• Cast: Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Josh Brolin.

• Director: Ridley Scott.

• Family Call: Too violent for youngsters.

• Running Time: 157 minutes.

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