Ridley Scott ventured into Martin Scorsese territory with American Gangster – and it’s a shame he’s not really tried to do so again.
Back in 2007, American Gangster was the first Ridley Scott film in quite some time to hit me square between the eyes, perhaps indeed since Gladiator at the beginning of the decade. It was a striking crime epic, seeing Scott venture closer to Martin Scorsese than we ever might have expected him to.
Based on an article by Mark Jacobson in New York Magazine called ‘The Return of Superfly’, it’s all about the gangster of the title, Frank Lucas. It sees Scott work with screenwriter Steven Zaillian in depicting the intense yet epic rise and fall of Denzel Washington’s powerful figure.
Ridley Scott initially imagined two films from Zaillian’s work, though paused to make Kingdom Of Heaven and almost saw the project fall into the hands of Brian de Palma, Antoine Fuqua, Peter Berg and Terry George in various guises, before Scott returned to it.
Over the previous decade, Washington had started experimenting much more with playing bad guys, or at least men of weaker moral fibre, and it’s a career choice that pays off dividends here. Much as Russell Crowe essays a trickier role excellently, this is Washington’s film and he owns it – helping Scott craft a crime epic that may not quite rank as a Scorsese great but comes damn near close thanks to a well crafted script, a terrific 60s/70s atmosphere and electric performances.
Though based on a true story, I imagine a fair bit was dramatised here because no way could Frank Lucas have been as frankly cool and badass a crime figure Washington makes him. Denzel injects the man with a strict sense of moral code, of looking out for family and friends, while also retaining a personal distance; he’s quiet, moody, introspective, disliking of grandeur, yet he’s also a blaring contradiction as he lives in a grand house, drives a beautiful car, charms a model-gorgeous wife. Washington expertly depicts a man who wants to be all things – virtuous yet exacting, humble yet rich – but ultimately manages to not quite be any, getting lost in his own maelstrom.
It’s a fascinating story that Scott drips in atmosphere. We feel like we’re in this faux-glamorous New York City of club owners, glitzy boxing matches and Sicilian Mafia bosses. It all comes alive, plus he aptly gets into issues of race and colour, not beating us over the head with the point that Lucas achieved a status briefly that no other black man did in organised crime.
The Crowe side of things that doesn’t gel with the piece quite as well, surprisingly given this continues Crowe’s consistent pairing with Scott after Gladiator and A Good Year, with Body of Lies and Robin Hood still to come. There’s a sense that Scott was a bit less interested in his Richie Roberts – the honest cop cast out for refusing to be bought like the rest and sacrificing a relationship with his family to bring Lucas down. It’s a tough role, as Crowe successfully makes us root for a very selfish individual, but that’s maybe because he’s painted a bit too obviously virtuous. Scott doesn’t get into the mud enough with him.
Washington makes the point that both men are flip sides of a similar coin, which Scott does manage to portray throughout:
That one man appears to be so straight and honest in his police work is so dishonest in his private life. Another man who seems to be so dishonest in his work life is so honest in his private life. And how these two guys came together and actually, to this day, are still friends.
Luckily we have Josh Brolin’s odious crooked cop to provide the truly amoral aspect necessary, but as good as Brolin is he plays a vividly ‘evil’ side of that coin that verges a bit on pantomime at times. Yet these are minor issues, as a superb supporting cast – such names as Idris Elba (recipient of Lucas’ most chilling moment), Chiwetel Ejiofor or Carla Gugino, all excellent in small roles. They help Crowe and Washington deliver two memorable performances.
One wonders in hindsight if Scott was quite the right man to make American Gangster given the significant black perspective of the film, one that Zaillian himself alluded to when interviewed:
There seems like there hadn’t really been a film dealing with a black gangster that wasn’t in some way falling into the blaxploitation category. Certainly one that wasn’t approached as a big-budgeted, sort of epic scope film. That was definitely one of the things that appealed to me about it was if it we could do that it would be fantastic because I hadn’t seen anything like that.
Would it be made differently now? Perhaps. Yet Scott delivers the film with such verve and style, such technical and visual skill. This, for Scott, is his Godfather, and while it may be a few steps behind that classic, it deserves to be regarded as one of the better Hollywood crime epics. Washington and Crowe as usual prove their acting chops with two magnetic performances, telling a quite fascinating story about two very complex men. You’ll have to wait until the last fifteen minutes before they get a scene together but it is absolutely worth it.
It is disappointing that Scott never truly returns to the gangster epic in quite this manner, instead choosing to return to the historical epic for his next picture. It will be an example of the scattershot nature of his 21st century career, and one of diminishing returns. We’re going to be looking at examples of some of those projects in due course…
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