Product Description

Ridley Scott (Spy Game)'s American Gangster chronicles the life of a Harlem drug lord (Denzel Washington) and the cop (Russell Crowe) who tried to bring him to justice.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2258 in DVD
• Released on: 2008-03-10
• Rating: Suitable for 18 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English, Polish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 169 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
A slow burning, yet entirely gripping, mobster film, American Gangster pits Denzel Washington’s Frank Lucas against Russell Crowe’s law enforcer Richie Roberts. Spread over a necessarily prolonged running time, their story is then brutally, expertly, told.

And while American Gangster isn’t in the league of prime Scorsese and Coppolla classics (such as Goodfellas and The Godfather), it’s the nearest we’ve come in quite some time to something of that ilk. It’s all based on a true story, which does mean you need to forgive it some of its obvious narrative conventions, yet this also lends it a gravitas that the film eagerly makes the most of.

It’s great too to see British director Ridley Scott tackling meatier material again. This is the man, after all, who gave us Blade Runner, Alien and Gladiator, and he duly delivers with American Gangster. His finest work it isn’t, but an engrossing, explosive and hard-as-nails drama it absolutely is.

What’s more, American Gangster is powered by two of the finest leading man working in Hollywood right now, and it’s terrific to see Washington and Crowe on top form here. And while in cinematic terms it’s hardly a film that treads new ground, it’s nonetheless a proper, grown-up and engrossing movie, and a very good one at that. --Jon Foster

Customer Reviews

Very good film with superb performance by Crowe
This is definitely another masterful piece of work from Ridley Scott if not quite a masterpiece.

The film is beautifully shot, as you would expect of a Ridley Scott film, and the early 70s New York seediness is powerfully evoked. It lacks the romanticism of the Godfather and the more sleazy glamour of Goodfellas but it makes up for this with a more realistic depiction; this is the seventies as I remember it, though admittedly I was not in gangster land Manhattan at the time.

The Drug enforcement officers are downbeat, cynical and mostly corrupt and on the make. They are deeply unappealing people and Crowe's character Richie Roberts pitches against them in his incorruptibility, which makes him an outsider among his colleagues. Roberts is no moral puritan, his line in the sand is drawn elsewhere, as he is a lousy father, useless husband and pretty promiscuous. This is quite the opposite of Denzel Washington's Frank Lucas, who is a devoted husband and family oriented man. He demands loyalty but is able to indulge his family whereas Roberts is loyal to nothing except his job.

Frank Lucas's rise to power comes about by sheer business acumen as he buys high quality heroine from source in Vietnam and then transports it in the coffins of dead soldiers coming back home in military planes. He is able to undercut all the competition with a finer product and corners the market out doing the Mafia, who being wise to a winning situation join him.

The trappings of success and power are quite extraordinarily displayed in a gorgeously opulent set piece where Frank Lucas negotiates with Mafia Godfather Armand Assante.

There are some spectacular short sequences of ultra violence which reinforces Frank Lucas's seriousness, ruthlessness and take no prisoners approach to all who hinder or cross him.

For me the 157 minute running time fairly flew by as I found the film totally absorbing. Denzel Washington's acting is superb and Crowe's is in another dimension with a deep, quiet and very powerful performance. In my view Crowe's performance is worthy of an Oscar.

The ending is surprising and illustrates a place where the different make ups of the two characters meet both in their role as outsiders and their attitude to the concept of loyalty.

See this film, it is worth it.

one of ridley scott's best films.
this is quite simply one of the best films of 2007. it's a bit slow, but the story is really compelling and the acting is excellent from both russell crowe and denzel washington, who let's face it, is quite simply incapable of ever giving a bad performance no matter what he happens to be in, even the otherwise dreadfull virtuosity which previously teamed up washington with crowe had good performances from both washington and a then unknown russell crowe.
in fact, the acting is excellent from everyone in the cast, the other standout goes to josh brolin as a dirty cop on washington's payroll. the only slight fault i can find is you can't help feeling you've seen it all before. crowe's character at times comes off like serpico, and the soundtrack feels like a martin scorsese movie.
this is one of ridley scott's best films and will be remembered i think in years to come along with other classic ridley scott films like alien, blade runner and gladiator, and more than makes up for the rather dull a good year.

The new Godfather?
The cliches of gangster films are so firmly established that it seems difficult to imagine doing anything new with them and indeed there isn't much here that we haven't seen before - but the class with which it's executed is breathtaking. It helps that it's based on a true story of an ambitious drugs baron and the cop who ended his reign (one of the few who wasn't on the take at the time).

Buying heroin direct from Vietnam was the 'business idea' that created an empire (don't remember seeing that one on 'The Dragons' Den'!) and on that simple thought, the whole film twists and turns. The acting is immaculate and the direction superb (just what you'd expect from the man who gave us Alien, Gladiator, Thelma and Louise and the Hovis advert).

When The Godfather came out, the world was still shocked by how influential gangsters could be. We're no longer remotely surprised, of course, so this film can never pack the same punch. Nevertheless, it's a formidable gangster epic and one of the best films of the year.