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American Gangster Movie Review

American Gangster is a 2007 crime film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe. It’s a solid, but overlong and familiar movie.

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“The loudest one in the room is the weakest one in the room“

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Frank is a powerful drug lord whose booming drug trade is being undermined by crooked law enforcement officers and smaller street crews. Detective Roberts is the only cop who is willing to tackle him. Apparently based on a true story, but clearly not being faithful to real life events all that much, this is one of those movies that reminded me of ‘The Departed’, which means it’s a film that is confidently made and solid at everything that it does, but simply too familiar to make a bigger impact.

Yes, we’ve seen movies like this one before numerous times. It’s one of those epic crime films that span many years and are about a detective chasing a criminal until he finally catches him. It’s all been there, done that. But the fact that Ridley Scott actually managed to direct this material well and he wouldn’t quite be your first choice for this genre speaks volumes of his talents.

The standouts are the acting performances. Denzel Washington was very good in the main role – he is suave and memorable throughout. Russell Crowe also delivered strong work, which certainly ranks among his best performances after ‘Gladiator’. I loved the dynamic between the two and that final section with the two talking was the highlight as it was so well written and engaging.

My main issue with American Gangster is its runtime. There was simply no need for this story to be almost three hours long. This led to a lot of padding with unnecessary scenes that are plain dull. A more streamlined version of this film would have made it much more impactful.

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Ruby Dee was somehow nominated for an Oscar for such a small, far from interesting role. None of the supporting players manage to stick out as Denzel and Crowe clearly took the spotlight away from all of them. This familiar plot was elevated thanks to strong execution, fine directing and solid technical aspects, but this story needed to have been fun and due to its pacing issues it was not all that engaging to be honest.