by S Bond Herndon

Created on: June 16, 2008

It takes a bit of audacity to make a movie titled: American Gangster. You're either pretentious, or a fool, or in the case of Ridley Scott, you simply have it all together and are putting it on the line- -no holes barred.

Gritty, no nonsense, this one ranks right along side of the greatest gangster films: Godfather, Good Fellas, The Departed, Gangs of New York, fit nicely on the shelf beside American Gangster, which, just as its contemporaries and predecessors, follows the strict line of rule for a movie whose audience is savvy and fully aware of what is expected by a good film in this genre.

Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe did not strike this reviewer as a good pair to throw into such a piece. Not to cast any negatives on these two fine academy award winning actors, but they seemed almost too big for the roles Their fame tends to overshadow the parts they were cast for; in other words: I was worried and apprehensive to even see this one for fear that I'd simply see Denzel and Russell battle over who of them is the bigger, badder actor.

My relief then was complete from the open once I got myself seated to watch. Both actors, as they should, delivered incredible roles that lent more to story than it did to either actor personally. Not once did I see a sign of Denzel or of the snooty Mr. Crowe on the screen; instead, I witnessed a struggle between a dedicated cop named Ritchie Roberts (Russell Crowe) and Harlem based gangster Frank Lucus (Denzel Washington), a man who would eventually become the biggest Heroin kingpin in history.

The film is many things: a fairly true account of an actual piece of American gang history, a gritty look into life on the streets of the 1970's when junkies were everywhere, and it is also a work that distills the moral issue for those faced with the decision to do right or wrong.

In both cases, that decision seems to be the best for each man; Lucas is out there fighting to carve out a piece of the good life for himself and his family and is tutored by the only successful man he'd ever known (the infamous Bumpy Johnson played by Clarence Williams III).

Ritchie Roberts is the lone detective with a good heart and just plain old bad luck. He sets his career on a collision course with disaster when he finds a million dollars in the trunk of a suspected drug runner's car and turns it in. This is at a time when police agencies in and around the NYC area were noted for their corruption; it's the Serpico era and things haven't played out internally

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