American Gangster (2007)
Sadly, disappointing. The trailer made it out to be sort of a "Clash of the Titans" drug drama epic between Crowe and Washington, but instead it was really focused on the details of the drug trade, and how Frank Lucas used business smarts to rise to power in '70s Harlem.
The details make for a lot of long, slow conversations with ambiguous objectives. I'm all for that, but it helps when there are less characters and motives so I can infer what they're really talking about. It's hard to have those kinds of conversations when the guy I don't recognize is somehow related to Crowe, but I don't remember how or remember if I should know, and they're talking around some kind of important point, but I can't remember what it is.
I was also sleep-deprived for this viewing and worried about falling behind in school. Attention-span lapses occurred. But no watch checks because I didn't want to think about the 2.5 hours passing during the movie. It seemed more like 2 hours than 2.5, to be honest.
One last thing: Denzel WAAASHington. (that's for ben who's the only person who might read this blog and get that joke)
The details make for a lot of long, slow conversations with ambiguous objectives. I'm all for that, but it helps when there are less characters and motives so I can infer what they're really talking about. It's hard to have those kinds of conversations when the guy I don't recognize is somehow related to Crowe, but I don't remember how or remember if I should know, and they're talking around some kind of important point, but I can't remember what it is.
I was also sleep-deprived for this viewing and worried about falling behind in school. Attention-span lapses occurred. But no watch checks because I didn't want to think about the 2.5 hours passing during the movie. It seemed more like 2 hours than 2.5, to be honest.
One last thing: Denzel WAAASHington. (that's for ben who's the only person who might read this blog and get that joke)
posted by Jon @ 11:52 PM
1 Comments:
At 2:11 PM,
Chris said…
well, i sorta liked this one. it didn't hurt that russell crowe played a tough jew, cause there are too few jews as action heroes, and too many as villains. like ron silver, in everything.
the thing that struck me is that this movie didn't quite decide whether to go with faux-documentary realism or over the top action. it's mostly shot in a realistic style, but i felt like there were too many familiar actors in this movie for that approach to seem credible. i appreciate the attempt to assert some social relevance with the references to race and class, the civil rights movement, etc., but i think i probably would have liked this more if it had been less realistic and had more action scenes.
two awesome things:
1)they used the song across one hundred and tenth street from the awesome blaxploitation movie of the same name, which was awesome
2) you can see the rza's wu tang tattoo in at least one scene
oh yeah, and if you saw the movie you should look up articles on frank lucas and richie roberts because after the film ends the rest of the story is pretty interesting and also bizarre.
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