Pace Paw Print

Media Credit: cinemaplus.wordpress.com Two powerful actors in one movie, what more could you ask for?

American Gangster is a powerful, character driven and engrossing mob story based on true events. From Virtuosity to American Gangster, Crowe and Washington have come a long way and with Scott at the helm, satisfaction is a guarantee.

Denzel Washington (Training Day, DéjĂ  vu) plays Frank Lucas as a business man, only knowing what his mentor, taught him. He is a man that treats every little task as if it was a life alternating event.

The movie shows how Frank Lucas goes from the driver of a local mob boss to higher then the top Italian mobs. He accomplished this feat by treating the drug trading as a serious business. From the moment he was alone he set up two goals. One, to have order on the streets and two, to work for no man only himself. Frank gains his success by selling drugs labeled Blue Magic.

Once Frank gets things running he hires the only people that he can trust, which is his family and he doesn't just bring the mother or the brother he brings the whole family. As Frank's success increase it also comes at a price.

Russell Crowe's (3:10 to Yuma, Virtuosity) character Richie Roberts is a New Jersey cop, a man who is honest in his job but lives a dishonest life.

In the opening scenes of Richie, he is on a stakeout and finds close to a 1 million dollars in unmarked cash, he has a choose to make, be corrupt and take the money or turn it in and face being outcaste by the police department. He does the right thing and turns in the money. This event leads him finding his partner dead by O D on blue magic and his creating his own task force on taking down the people behind blue magic.

But the honest work doesn't make up for the amount of women he sleeps with or the time that is spent away from his wife and kid.

Detective Trupo, played by Josh Brolin, is an interesting character. He is a corrupt cop who basically owns all the mobs in NY and gets a cut out of every deal that happens in the city. The reason he is interesting is because he is the one that you feel more hate toward then any other characters in the movie. Also this is the type of person Russell's character would have been if he lead the same life that he lives when he is not working.

So in the film Trupo is interesting to watch because of how the brief interactions play out in the film.

Also throughout the film it is full of famous rappers and recognizable actors that will make you say" they're in this?!" But it would be spoiled in this review

Ridley Scott (Gladiator, Blade Runner) truly shows his directing abilities in this movie. In the movie Frank Lucas glorified characters, making you not want anything bad to happen to them, but what Scott does in the movie in terms of directing is show how Frank is destroying the people by distributing the drugs.

One scene in particular shows a mother over dose on Franks "blue magic" while her infant baby is beside her crying. This is a powerful scene because beyond all the success and glory that frank has accomplished, it comes at a steep price.

The pacing of the movie is very well, every moment of the movie offers some insight to the vast amount of characters in this movie. Every scene in the movie has a purpose in the film from start to finish.

The films dialog is excellent and one of the best this year alone. The dialog in this film feels very true to the time in which the movie takes place and very true to the characters that are speaking them. There are moments in this movie where you will be laughing and then there will be moments where you will be on the edge of your seat because you'll want to know how they are going to respond to the event that just took place.

The lack of music keeps you focus on the films dialog and keep everything moving forward at a normal pace rather than having a high intense scene and having the next be a non-relevant scene so you can recover from the last scene.

Denzel Washington gives the performance of his career. Throughout the movie he does not skip one beat as he delivers each line as powerfully as the pervious line before it. Between lines his facial expression represent what the character is thinking. When he has no dialog to speak, his body speaks for him and it is just as powerful as his spoken lines.

Russell Crowe's performance isn't on par with Denzel's performance. Russell's acting comes off as a good one but not his best performance to date, the reason being is that he plays a weaker character in terms of personality unlike Denzel where he is noticed taking charge. But Russell's performance is not bad by any means, his character is actually an opposite to Denzel like his ying to his yang.

One of the best moments in the movie is when the characters meet for the first time, there hasn't been two huge powerhouse's on the screen at the same like this since Heat with Pacino and De Niro. The performance given in this scene is one of the best in the movie.

This movie should win best acting, directing and movie of the year at the Academy Awards. This movie has almost all the angles covered to be an American movie classic, if anything this is our generations Godfather. Bottom line: this movie is a must see and a can not miss. 10/10.

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