American Gangster
Written by Mark Osborne
Published on 12/11/2007
Originally from Binary Culture / [the-lowdown.net]
http://www.binaryculture.net

I've found that film is a great means for laying bare the psychoses of a given nation, which is why there's so little Canadian film. We're fairly well adjusted people. Japanese film is just plain fucked up. The only place on Earth where you can find a longer list of abhorrent behavior than Japanese cinema is Warren Ellis' blog, and probably half of that is gleaned from Japanese cinema.

Hollywood, on most days, does a great job of letting us know just how fucked up America is without even really intending to. Ridley Scott manages to cut straight to the heart of one of America's most treasured psychoses with his new film American Gangster, but he seems to do it by accident on his way to finding a damn good story to tell.

American Gangster is inescapably in the shadow of Brian De Palma's Scarface in that it concerns itself with the rise and fall of a drug kingpin, in this case the real life Harlem gangster Frank Lucas, but veers in an incredibly different direction from De Palma's disturbingly glitzy and stylish portrayal of organized crime (despite it being a masterpiece of American cinema). In dealing with real life events (such as Black Hawk Down), Scott's camera is impassive and unengaged, forcing the actors to carry the plot and the audience to render their own judgements. It worked magnificently for Black Hawk Down, but I can't help but wonder if American Gangster required a heavier hand more in line with Steven Spielberg, as American Gangster feels like it should become explosive at any moment but somehow refuses to light like a cheap match.

The central problem is America's psychotic obsession with rebels and how that applies to contemporary pop culture. It's all well and good to be canonizing your James Deans and Hunter S Thompsons, but Scarface underlined the very dark side of the psychosis by inspiring and firing up the worst elements of rap culture, or as one of the members of three-six mafia said on an episode of Hollyhood; "What else are a bunch of black men sitting around on a couch going to do? Watch Scarface." Rappers and Scarface are like my stupid high school friends and Fight Club; they just can't pound it through their fucking skulls that it's a cautionary tale not to be emulated.

Throughout the movie we're reminded that Frank, and his predecessor/mentor Bumpy, were important figures in the Harlem community despite being known criminals. Frank himself flaunts this fact to Ritchie as they face off before going to trial. "I've got business leaders, I've got sports figures. I've got Harlem." My problem is that the film never really digs into how inescapable the criminal element is in black American society. Fuck you if you're offended that I won't shy away from it, but it's the truth.

Consider how many top black celebrities are either criminals or are somehow linked to criminals or criminal activity. Rappers skew the numbers considerably in this day and age, but the point remains salient. We see what kind of damage Frank's heroin does to Harlem in montages of addicts in squalor (a friend of mine pointed out that it still remained very sanitized, specifically mentioning that a junky's arm is generally bruised and discoloured) and we see him try to justify it by arguing about gangs of other ethnicities that "bled Harlem dry" before he took over, but we don't see how his prominence or influence affects the community outside of his immediate family. It's a glaringly missed opportunity.

American Gangster is clearly not a movie with an agenda of incisive social commentary, I suppose that's better left to the likes of John Singleton and Spike Lee. It is however a Ridley Scott film, so whatever it lacks in specific realism or social agenda will be made up for with operatic storytelling and titanic performances. Neither Denzel Washington nor Russell Crowe disappoint in their roles. American Gangster slams home how truly criminal it was to give Washington an Oscar for Training Day as his work in this film puts his supposedly award winning role to complete shame. He will have little true competition for best actor come February except perhaps from co-star Crowe or Johnny Depp for the upcoming Sweeny Todd.

Make no mistake, American Gangster is an incredible movie and on the short list for the best of 2007. It's an excellent Hollywood film that very nearly expands beyond that meager origin, but settles for being among the best in it's own class instead of defining a new one. Go out and enjoy American Gangster, it's great. You won't even notice what's missing from it unless you give a shit about things no one seems to.