American Gangster

This is an engrossing story, told smoothly and well, and Russell Crowe's contribution is enormous.

The movie, based on a true story, takes surprising twists and turns right up to its chilling ending and is probably the best gangster crime drama of the year.

In the end, though, the success of American Gangster doesn't flow from the originality of its ideas, or its bid for epic status, as much as from its craftsmanship and confident professionalism. It's a great big gangster film, and a good one.

As an epic, American Gangster doesn't cut it. The reputations of Francis Ford Coppola's "The Godfather," Brian De Palma's "Scarface," Martin Scorsese's "Goodfellas" or Michael Mann's "Heat" are safe. At best, American Gangster is no better than a workmanlike imitation of its betters.

The acting is unquestionably strong, the songs are integrated appropriately (functioning as both audio bridges and dramatic enhancements), and yet something is missing in how the individual pieces of the film--the story, the themes, and the violence--fit together.

The problem is that the movie spends as much time on the boring detective chasing Lucas as on the drug lord himself.

Offers only the stingiest platform for its actors, and as a piece of storytelling -- built on the foundation of a great story -- it's an epic that's been sliced and diced into so many little morsels that almost nothing in it has any weight.

It's a good movie, the ending is pleasant and believable, it was nice to watch the gangster try to work honorably and remain as honest as possible, and the policeman who, despite all his negative actions, did the right thing was very nice.

Great cast given less to work with than they deserved. Surprisingly shallow for a Zaillian screenplay, it failed to make us care enough about the characters. Except for a scene or two about Frank's backstory, it was difficult to understand why they chose to do what they did, though the social commentary did feel enlightening on the whole. With more depth and originality, this could have been a truly great film. However, since it had so many elements we've seen many times before, on the whole, "American Gangster" felt by-the-numbers instead of compelling, or crisp -- and far too long.)

Love gangster movies. Denzel Washington's one of the best to ever do it. All his movies are good.

The hollow echo of a bloated crime saga: A 1.0-star "trauma" of stagnant ambition.2012 (1.0)I watched "American Gangster" in 2012, and it resulted in a definitive 1.0-star "trauma" that left me grappling with a profound sense of "silent frustration." Despite the prestigious pedigree of its director and cast, the film’s narrative rhythm was suffocatingly stagnant, failing to provide the "sensational" or "raw" energy I expect from a high-stakes crime epic. I found the experience to be an exhausting "revelation" of how a long runtime can feel like an eternity when the "chewy" tension is completely absent. The 95% preservation of my memory is dominated by a feeling of total detachment, as the plot trudged through predictable tropes without ever **** the fourth wall of my boredom. It lacked the "visceral" impact of my 5.0-star masterpieces, offering instead a cold and mechanical progression that felt entirely devoid of soul. Unlike the "pathetic" yet compelling vulnerabilities of the characters in "The Foul King," the figures here felt like hollow archetypes trapped in a colorless void. It remains in my archive as a 1.0-star landmark of disappointment—a high-budget ordeal that offered no emotional payoff and served only as a monotonous drone in my 2012 cinematic journey.

American gangster is an arrogant, violent, phony, wannabe gangster film. It has some extreme violent images the want to make you throw up but the sad thing, so will the story.