American Gangster tells the story of a rising drug dealer in Harlem in the 1970’s. Denzel Washington plays the character of Frank Lucas who takes over ‘Bumpy’ Johnson’s business after he dies of a heart attack. The plot seemed like it would be predictable because of all t he other “gangster” movies out there, butt his movie proved all of my guesses wrong. There was never any doubt that Frank (Denzel) would be caught at the end, but what I was most surprised at was the way it was handled by Frank. Denzel portrayed Frank Lucas incredibly well. His character did not like to show emotion but Denzel’s body movements and actions really gave us an idea on how he was feeling. When Frank figured out that the cops were starting to look into him and his business, he burned the fur coat his wife got him. This action showed how angry he was and how he didn’t even care if he hurt his wife. Frank lived his life by not being too flashy. He did not want to look like the other drug dealers and be easy to pinpoint. He wore the fur coat to a boxing ring where he had better seats than people higher up on the social ladder than him, and he was picked out from the crowd by the detective, Richie Roberts. In my opinion, that was the turning point of the movie and Denzel had to be more careful after that mistake. Since Frank did not show his emotions easily, I feel like this made the movie a lot stronger because Frank handled himself with class (for the most part) which is completely unlike the typical “Gangster” movie cliché.
Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe) was forced to make tough decisions throughout the movie about his job and family. He made it his mission to stop the drug deals in Harlem and he worked on finding and punishing the cops who were taking part in the drug deals. Russell stole the show with his acting. The passion and drive for finding Frank and busting the drug deal was clear through his motions and words. When Frank was caught by the police and talking to Richie alone, Frank bribed Ritchie with millions of dollars to drop the case. Ritchie was so intent on making sure Frank did the time for his crime that he did not take the bribe even when he needed the money. Ritchie also assembled a whole new team to try and catch the drug deal leader. Richie was an unselfish man who did not want to go against the law even when his friend needed him to. His friend was dealing drugs and when the sale went down, he shot the guy who was selling him drugs. Richie’s friend was his partner and when he wanted Richie to file a false report, Richie couldn’t do it. There was a lot of scenes where you see the corruption of cops and a lot of people trying to persuade Richie to bend the law for them. His character stayed strong throughout the movie even though you could see him struggle with his decisions.
Overall, this movie was better than I expected. I thought it was going to be a predictable, bloody movie with a lot of gun fights and car chases. Instead, we actually got to look into the lives of the drug dealer and the detective. You were able to know the characters on a more personal level instead of just seeing their mean side. I felt like at some points the sub-plots became a little too much to handle. I felt like the sub-plots were necessary to understand each character, but it became overwhelming at some points. I also felt like we were introduced to too many unimportant characters and it was confusing on who was which person. Maybe the director did this on purpose to show how the littler characters meant nothing to Frank, but I still wish that we were able to figure out who played what character. Sometimes I have a hard time with character names and putting names to the faces, so maybe the confusion with names was just an issue with me. I thought the ending was very creative by having Frank walk out of jail and stand on the street and not knowing what to do next. I wish that we were able to see what happened to the characters after. I wanted know what happened to Frank’s wife and family and what happened with Richie’s family and his custody battle.
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