Movie reviews, production notes, and more! - "American Gangster"

Movie Review: American Gangster

Film Review By Michael Phillips, Tribune Movie Critic Amid this fall's array of small, topical dramas, many of which have carried a medicinal aftertaste, "American Gangster" comes as something of a relief. It's a big, juicy 1970s period piece, one foot in real life, the other in the movies, the preferred stance of many Hollywood crime sagas. The film gathers steam slowly but surely. Near the end, after spending most of their screen time on parallel tracks, Denzel Washington, as Harlem drug lord Frank Lucas, mixes it up with Russell Crowe's narcotics cop Richie Roberts. Separately and, fleetingly, together, it's a pleasure to watch these two stars do their job. Director Ridley Scott's saga is full of lovely supporting work, too, from Chiwetel Ejiofor as one of Lucas' brothers to an outrageously hammy Armand Assante as a mafioso, to Josh Brolin, dripping with tough-guy privilege as a New York cop on the take. If the film, laboring under the freight of Oscar expectations, settles for being good, not great, therein lies a reminder of how difficult a screenwriter's job really is. Steven Zaillian is the writer. If there's one word never associated with the man who adapted "Schindler's List" ... read more Official Web Site: http://www.americangangster.net/ Back to main movie page Showing Today at: Click here for other showings