Directed by Ridley Scott

Starring Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe

Emphasis on American. This is a Horatio Alger story, Harlem-style—the rise and fall of a drug lord who bests the competition with old-fashioned MBA tactics: a product twice as good at half the price.

The entrepreneur is Frank Lucas, played by wolfishly lean-and-hungry Denzel Washington. His product is “Blue Magic”—heroin smuggled to the States from Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War years (the method of transportation is macabre, grisly, and more than a little ingenious). In the august American tradition, Lucas manifests his destiny with a little get-up-and-go, innovative marketing/distribution tactics, name-branding, and ends by establishing a business monolith on the streets of New York.

American Gangster would make an interesting (if near unwatchable) double-feature with There Will Be Blood. Both are gruesome, indicting explorations of the American Dream skewed, twisted, and transformed into the American Nightmare. Both examine the Darwinian nature (“red in tooth and claw”) of America’s capitalism—kill or be killed, survival-of-the-fittest, last man standing. Both feature repulsive yet hypnotic antiheroes whose ambition is matched by their amorality. Both movies are long, violent, and bludgeoning.

Unfortunately, Gangster lacks Blood’s obsessive focus on its main character. Ridley Scott, the director, has delusions of grandeur—he seems to think he’s making a Scorsese or Coppola movie. There’s the pop soundtrack, the roving camera, the deep chiaroscuro lighting, the moral ambiguity, the family drama, and the lines writ in stone, as when Lucas intones: “See, ya are what ya are in this world. That’s either one of two things: Either you’re somebody, or you ain’t nobody.” There’s even the predictable contrast of the Christian liturgy with scenes of sickening brutality. It’s been done before, and better.

Washington is magnetic as the cool but volatile Lucas, while his costar Russell Crowe gets stuck with the perfunctory part of dogged detective on Lucas’ trail, the one good cop in a corrupt city. This parallel storyline adds unnecessary poundage to an already flabby script, especially the sub-subplot involving divorce proceedings with the requisitely long-suffering wife. (Perhaps Denzel is getting revenge. Remember a movie from years back called Virtuosity?—probably not, but if you do it’s only because a young, relatively unknown Aussie named Russell Crowe stole the movie blind from its supposed star, Denzel. Now it’s Denzel’s turn to slow-burn as the bad guy.)

The viewer has to wade through a whole lot of muck to arrive at the big showdown between Russell and Denzel (I mean, Richie Roberts and Frank Lucas). It’s almost worth the wait. Their scenes together have a wit and energy the rest of movie lacks. There’s even a suggestion of redemption in the Lucas character who, when Richie asks him if he’d like a drink, answers with a grin, “holy water.” It’s too little, too late. The whole movie could have used a sprinkling.

USCCB rating: L—Limited Audiences

Crime/Detective | No Comments »

Oscar did itself proud by awarding No Country for Old Men the big awards Sunday night: Best Screenplay, Best Director(s), Best Picture and especially Best Supporting Actor to the preternaturally excellent Javier Bardem. Few could argue with the Academy’s Best Actor choice, either: Daniel Day-Lewis for his titanic performance in There Will Blood. Though far from a perfect film, There Will Be Blood is genuinely ambitious and serious, not to mention further evidence that the young and talented Paul Thomas Anderson will certainly make a masterpiece in his career, even if he hasn’t yet.

The wise Roger Ebert wrote, for my money, the most insightful review of There Will Be Blood out there, especially as it compares to the superior No Country. Here’s a snippet:

“There Will Be Blood” is the kind of film that is easily called great. I am not sure of its greatness. It was filmed in the same area of Texas used by “No Country for Old Men,” and that is a great film, and a perfect one. But “There Will Be Blood” is not perfect, and in its imperfections (its unbending characters, its lack of women or any reflection of ordinary society, its ending, its relentlessness) we may see its reach exceeding its grasp. Which is not a dishonorable thing.

Read the rest of the review here.

And here’s a Bardem pic for Rach. (El Capataz de cargadores, no?)

Oscars & Awards | 3 Comments »

Or, should I say, the 80th Oscars. Or should I say, how Clan Murphy hopes the Oscars will pan out, seeing as how (as usual) we have very decided opinions on this year’s big pictures, and simply do not trust all those other Oscar voters to get it right—there are precedents, boys and girls! (Remember 1986 when John Barry won the Oscar for his score for Out of Africa, which was largely an update of his earlier Born Free, over Ennio Morricone’s seminal and path-breaking The Mission? Or remember the Best Picture win in 1996 for The English Patient, one of the few movies we’ve actually hated, over the Coen Brothers’ other masterpiece, Fargo?

Which leads me to this year’s Oscars and No Country for Old Men. Clan Murphy is in agreement that this movie, written, directed & edited by Joel & Ethan Coen, should win all eight categories it’s been nominated for–Best Picture, Director(s), adapted screenplay, supporting actor, cinematography. etc. In fact, in the “we wuz robbed!” category, after seeing the film twice, I can’t understand how Josh Brolin didn’t get nominated for Best Actor, especially vis-a-vis the solid-but-overrated George Clooney in Michael Clayton. (He was better in O, Brother, Where Art Thou?).

We also think 3:10 to Yuma and Zodiac, even Gone Baby Gone, were more deserving of Oscar noms than Clayton, which was, though a smart script, sort of The Insider-lite.)

Anyway, though we haven’t all seen everything up yet–don’t talk to me about Atonement, for instance, a film adapted from a novel I hated, and which has been much compared to, gag, The English Patient–here’s Clan Murphy’s in-progress list of who, among those actually nominated, we’d like to see get Oscar tonight

BEST PICTURE: No Country for Old Men
BEST DIRECTOR: Joel & Ethan Coen, No Country
BEST ACTOR:Daniel Day Lewis, There Will Be Blood
BEST ACTRESS: no opinion yet–haven’t seen enough of ‘em
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Javier Barden, No Country
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: We loved Ruby Dee in American Gangster and Tilda Swinton in Michael Clayton, but we haven’t yet seen I’m Not There–friends say Cate Blanchett is amazing.
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: Roger Deakins for No Country
BEST EDITING: Roderick Jaynes (the Coen Bros) for No Country–these guys have mastered the art of editing movies as tight as a drum without being in the least hurried.
BEST FOREIGN FILM: How could the rules have displaced The Diving Bell and the Butterfly?
BEST MUSIC SCORE: 3:10 TO YUMA
BEST SOUND EDITING: No Country
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Diablo Cody for Juno
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: les freres Coen for No Country

Oscars & Awards | No Comments »