American Gangster

I saw the movie American Gangster last night and I have mixed feelings about the movie. I came away with it with a bad taste in my mouth for various reasons. The foremost reason would be the high expectations with which I entered the movie. I find that when I enter a movie and have no or low expectaions, I tend to like the movie more. As usual, high expectations for a movie led to disappointment when the movie could not meet them.

How did the movie not live up to expectations? Here are a few reasons:

1. The characters where not developed sufficiently. It was clear the movie was going for a Heat feeling in the movie in which both criminal and detective are profiles throughout the movie. This can be a dangerous approach if it is not done well. The challenge is too make the viewer care about each character, while developing different aspect of them, while moving along the story. Unfortunately, American Gangster failed on all levels concerning Roberts. Frank Lucas was much better developed then Richie Roberts in these categories. Most scenes with Roberts felt forced and inconsequential to the moving forward in the film, esp the subplot of his custody battle (which upon research is not even factual). It also detracted from the character development of Lucas. The writers would have been much more successful if they had merely stuck with Roberts as the typical cop without giving his personality different aspects.

2. The story was choppy throughout. The movie did not seem to try to cover all aspects of Lucas' operation and did not spend enough time on any of them. For example, we are told of the businesses which were used as distribution points when Roberts is describing the operations of Lucas, but we were never shown them set up. The only attempt at this was a montage of distribution which did not make it clear that business fronts were being used.

3. There were too many subplots going on. Since there we so many, none could be fully or even adequately developed or explored. Here are a few subplots of which only a couple should have been used and developed: junkies dying from Blue Magic, junkies ruining their lives with drugs, Roberts partner, Roberts turning down the money, initial startup money for Lucas, custody battle with Roberts, womanizing of Roberts, connection with Italians by Lucas. There are more, but these are just a few.

4. Movie assumed to many conclusions from viewer. There is a fine line between making the viewer use their brain to figure stuff out and frustrating the viewer with too little context. American Gangster definitely relied on the viewer to make huge conclusions based on little scenes. Here are some examples: Roberts turning down the million, cops stealing the drugs, that the drug was even Heroin. Again, lots of examples. These are just a few.

Overall, the movie tried to do too much. But if had a good premise, plot and was acted and filmed well. I would give it a solid:

6/10