American Gangster

[Orlando Salazar]

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[censored] all the haters, denzel washington is a [censored] badass.

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many post are basically saying this. i dont rate movies by the actors. a good movie needs good actors, but acting quality is irrelvant (and can't be judged as well) without plot/character and philosophical development.

Also, I hated the depiction of black in this movie. If you read the article on Lucas, you'll see the movie's potential vs result. It reminded me of 300 after watching the history channel's expose: great potential in the story if it was made into a cartoon.

[shane88888]

The RZA and the shot of his Wu-Tang tattoo were funny.

I thought this movie was fine. I wasn't blown away, but I wasn't disappointed.

I could have done without the entire divorce/custody subplot; Denzel was the show here, not some waste of screentime best suited for the Lifetime channel.

[Blarg]

Nice counter-point to the linked review, but unfortunately it sounds like the review's points on the whole weren't shown up as wrong or misguided. The "for the love of a woman, an empire crumbles" schtick mentioned in the review seemed like injecting a ridiculous amount of Hollywoodness into a story that was already pretty epic and fascinating and would be trivialized by doing so, for instance. And the article the story was based on showed Lucas as having a definite evil side that it sounds like the movie didn't explore -- odd when it comes to someone who killed so many people, some up close and personal. That sounds kind of disappointing and like it fundamentally changes the man's story, and in the wrong way -- by cleaning it up and making it more politically acceptable, and more of a story fit for a movie star, than a story that had a movie star acting in it.

[Conspire]

I really enjoyed this movie. If any of you ever saw "Hoodlum" you would know how cool it was to see the end of bumpy johnsons reign.

[jackflashdrive]

A forgetable movie, but certainly not a travesty. A couple silly plotlines sprinkled here and there. Also, you can feel free to walk out of the movie when Lucas gets arrested. They next (last) 30 minutes is [censored].

[andyfox]

"the article the story was based on showed Lucas as having a definite evil side that it sounds like the movie didn't explore"

This is not true, from the opening shot (no pun intended) of the movie.

[andyfox]

BTW, Bumpy didn't really die in a big-box store as shown in the movie. He died in a nightclub.

[Blarg]

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"the article the story was based on showed Lucas as having a definite evil side that it sounds like the movie didn't explore"

This is not true, from the opening shot (no pun intended) of the movie.

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Well that's a relief at least. Though the linked article did sound like they cleaned Lucas up.

[andyfox]

"Though the linked article did sound like they cleaned Lucas up."

Well, Denzel Washington is playing him. That said, they show his dark side. Without giving away anything, they show him committing heinous acts and they show the consequences of his drug pushing. I haven't seen the American Gangster episode featuring Mr. Lucas, but one suspects that he is not quite the person that Denzel Washington portrays in a major Hollywood movie (nor, for that matter, that the man that Russell Crowe portrays is not quite like his portrayal either).

[daveT]

Does Denzel have the range to pull off the characterizations you are describing? Against Russel Crowe, Washington has not shown anything that I would consider complex. Hollywood would have to rewrite the movie so Denzel could play the role.