American Gangster
“That hat better get itself correct.”
Any rise-and-fall-of-the-gangster movie made after GoodFellas has a problem, namely that it is probably not GoodFellas, so even if it’s pretty good, it’s going to suffer by comparison. American Gangster isn’t trying to do the same things GoodFellas did; it isn’t an imitation, poor or otherwise. It’s a well-made picture with a few interesting moments. We’ve just seen it done — the period music and mustaches, the lone-wolf cop, the perks of the OC lifestyle, check, check, and check. It’s all flawlessly executed (with the exception of the Mob boss played by Armand Assante, whose note-for-note Richie Aprile impersonation is a neat party trick, but comes off cartoonish here) but somehow unexciting. The story itself is an interesting one; the movie isn’t dull. It just seems redundant.
Denzel typifies this, in a way. I like Denzel; he’s not bad here, because he’s seldom bad anywhere, but I don’t think he’s as good at playing bad guys as he’s now given credit for thanks to his Oscar for Training Day, which, while not egregiously incorrect, rewarded a performance that may have looked better compared to its mediocre surroundings than it actually was. In the last five years, he’s turned in performances that seem more Denzel™ than like actual acting. Again, he’s a pro — not crappy, not phoning it in — but movie culture seems to have decided that Denzel is a great actor and to have invested itself in that idea, when he’s in fact merely good.
Movie culture does that, sometimes, but because Denzel is consistently good, as well as having a pheromonally agreeable appeal, it isn’t problematic for me the way it is with, say, Jodie Foster. (And one of the times he was legitimately great — Philadelphia — has traditionally gone unsung.) But the fact that he isn’t actually all that natural in a dangerous role is notable here primarily because he shares several scenes with Idris Elba, a.k.a. Stringer Bell of The Wire. Whatever you think about Denzel’s acting, the guy is a capital-letter Movie Star from the signed-eight-by-ten old school, charisma for days — and Elba still pulls focus in their scenes together. Maybe if you haven’t seen Elba play String, you didn’t have that experience, but he’s doing his pimp-asshole thing in the diner, wearing just the wrongest hat ever made, and I was thinking, “That is Frank Lucas.” Denzel seems like you could reason with him, no matter how bad or mean the character — that he’s not completely without mercy. Elba also has that reasonable way about him as an actor, but he also has a much more dangerous way about him than Denzel.
I can think of a bunch of other guys from The Wire who, cast as Frank Lucas, could have raised the movie from “pretty good of the genre” to “mesmerizing” — starting with Lance Reddick, who is physically imposing, has a great set of Manson lamps (and that is not a euphemism for his butt cheeks, but it could be, because damn, that is an ass, ladies and gentlemen), can bite off curse words like nobody’s business, and is a fantastic actor to boot. Robert Wisdom is a little old to have played Frank, but has more edge to him than Denzel. And again, it’s not that Denzel sucked. It’s that they went with an actor who doesn’t do “ice water in the veins” all that well, because he’s more mainstream than the guys who could have owned the role more fully, but wouldn’t have opened the picture that well.
It’s an okay movie, watchable, paced nicely. It’s just not special. Reversing the casting of Denzel and Crowe, while impossible historically, might have given it a goose, but it is what it is.
One last note: Ruby Dee is very good, but it’s with a big assist from the script, and it just isn’t an Oscar performance.
Tags: movies
Thanks for bringing up how amazing DW was in Philadelphia. His was the character with the difficult arc to play; his was the performance that burned your retinas. Hanks just sat nobly, and nuzzled the Banderas and got thin.
I also think he was unjustly overlooked for his turn as Malcolm X; the movie had its flaws, but that performance was so dead on that it crowds my head whenever I see newsreel footage of the real Malcolm.
Ruby’s big scene in AG was fun in how she brought DW to heel. And I don’t mean the characters — she was schooling him. But I’m of the belief that one scene does not an Oscar earn, however often the Academy ignores me.
Agree about Ruby Dee, and in fact I’m irritated she was nominated (although I admit that reaction seems over the top) simply because she’s Ruby Dee and she slapped the crap out of Denzel. Yawn.
But any time anyone mentions actors from the Wire, I’m all over it. When Elba came on, mentally I was like “Woo! Stringer Bell!” It’s not right to swoon over a character who is a cold-blooded killer, but when he looks like Idris Elba…*sigh* And he has an intensity that is delish.
But agreed about Denzel…he simply plays a lot of Denzel, and it’s not bad, it’s just not new. But I always enjoy Russell Crowe (although he also has a habit of playing Russell Crowe). It’s just nice to see established actors break out of the box more (like George Clooney in “Michael Clayton”–fantastic), and this wasn’t that movie. But I enjoyed it.
Lance Reddick’s Manson Lamps. *sigh*
I’m a huge Denzel fan, and I think his Training Day Oscar was compensation for his snub for The Hurricane. I’ve heard him say something similar, that he didn’t think Training Day was his best work. And Ruby Dee HAS given Oscar-caliber performances, but this one isn’t.
I’m working my way through The Wire via Netflix, and Idris Elba does have a quiet ruthlessness to him; he can, and does, order murders with a nonchalance that suggests he’s nothing to fuck with. I think Denzel was going for something similar, which kind of worked, but he’s so charming and amiable and that seeped through and softened him a bit.
I don’t particularly care for Russell Crowe; he seems like a dick in real life, and I didn’t love his performance here, particularly his accent.
I just finished season 2 of The Wire, wherein you see Lance Reddick in his boxers, and I had NO idea that body was hiding under all those suits. Whoo, child.
Wait ’til S3 shows up in your mailbox. “In his boxers” really does not begin.
I’m with you on everything you just said, but when I think of the things in American Gangster that bugged me, the first thing that comes to mind is Russell Crowe’s accent. Because what in the holy hell was that? Secondly, when you have a nearly three-hour movie that examines the minutia of custody battles and trips to the park, you don’t have an extra ten to fifteen minutes to actually show Crowe switching sides and representing Denzel?
When that was just tacked on to the end of the movie, my first reaction was, what the hell did I just spend three hours watching? Because that sounds like an interesting story.
Kona– Interesting even if apparently practically none of it’s true, supposedly! ;)
From what I understand, Crowe copied tapes of Ritchie Roberts speaking so without hearing the real guy, I can hate the accent, but I can’t condemn it (see also: Rob Morrow in *Quiz Show*).
My problem in this one was that too much of it was fiction for a biopic. I know it happens all the time, but Roberts doesn’t even have a son, and look how much of a looong movie was devoted to him. Spend less time making the druglord out to be a hero and more time on how the guy who valued honesty above everything ended up a defense attorney.
When I think of the things in American Gangster that bugged me, the first thing that comes to mind is Russell Crowe’s accent.
I think talented actors on all sides of all the ponds do reasonably well with each other’s received standard accent. Renee Zellwegger did a decent job in BJD, but the character’s accent was “English” — not Geordie or Scouser. If she tried either of those (or any other British regional dialect), I’ve no doubt she’d stink.
And the same thing goes for the other side. I’m tired of hearing how great British/Aussie/Irish actors are at “American’ accents when all they’re doing is Standard U.S. English. Toni Collette and Russell Crowe in Little Miss Sunshine and LA Confidential? Terrific. Toni and Russell trying to do Philly and Jersey in Sixth Sense and American Gangster? Trainwreck. Same thing with Dominic West’s accent: Flawless, yes; Fell’s Point, not so much.