Movie Review: American Gangster

There is a fascinating story behind American Gangster. Unfortunately, director Ridley Scott waited until two and a half hours into movie to start telling it, and then spent about ten minutes telling it.

As with any fictionalized account “based on a true story,” it’s hard to imagine what parts of American Gangster are really true to real life events. The movie’s twin foci are Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington), a black gangster who revolutionizes the heroin business in the late 60s, early 70s by buying directly from the source and underselling his more established competition, and Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe), and impossibly honest cop charged with cleaning up New York City’s illegal drug trade. Scott takes his time developing both characters, bringing them closer and closer together as Lucas gets bigger and Roberts pieces together the city’s criminal pecking order from his New Jersey post.

The story is familiar to anyone who has seen Scarface, Goodfellas, Mean Streets, New Jack City, or any number of gangster classics. And American Gangster might have been ranked favorably to any one of them had it come out a couple of decades before. As it stands, the story arc is predictable, garden variety hubris. Lucas challenged the existing structure, shakes things up, gets to the top of the scene, and then falls. Washington and Crowe are pitch perfect playing familiar characters – the menacing, ambitious monster behind a cool, friendly façade and the dedicated but flawed everyman hero.

Ridley’s story unravels neatly, with only a couple of minor faults. The story of Lucas’s wife, Eva, feels extraneous and the role leaves little for Lymari Nadal to do but stand around looking lithesome until she has to react to occasional danger. And Roberts’ transition from cop to lawyer is quick and jarring. You wind up wondering how he went from lead investigator to lead prosecutor on the same case, if there isn’t some rule about self-interest that would prevent such a thing.

But the court sequence is the most interesting story. Yes, the montage where Lucas becomes a cooperative witness seems a little too friendly (I could imagine the Partridge Family’s “Get Happy” played in the background and sent off to VH1 as a promotional tool). But Lucas reveals a bit of himself in the beginning of the interrogation scene, about his family’s abuse at the hand of crooked police officers, that could have been a powerful bit of knowledge for the audience to have two and a half hours earlier.

Once Lucas is convicted, we get the subtitles finishing off the story. We learn that Lucas’s testimony led to the arrest of about 150 people involved in the drug trade, and that despite being sentenced to 70 years, he was released in 1981. And when he got into trouble again, Richie Roberts, who had left the prosecutor’s office, was his defense counsel, and that the two remain friends.

American Gangster is a passable action movie with some extraordinary performances. But it could have been an incredible character study about two extremely different people and the reasons why they become friends. Their interaction during the initial trial, and their relationship afterwards, is fraught with friction and dramatic possibility, and the potential for something that seems a little less standard the story Ridley ultimately decided to tell. At more than two and a half hours, you would think there would be enough room to tell more of that story. For now, you’ll have to rely on Google and a few books on Lucas for that story.

Movie Review: Ratatouille

It occurred to me, waiting in line for a Saturday night preview of Ratatouille, that I might be a little out of place in the theater. I was there a half an hour early carrying a notebook and Don Rickles’ autobiography, my pretzel bites and a big diet Coke. Most importantly, I am a thirty-four year old guy going to see a cartoon by myself. For a minute, I imagined worried mothers clutching their children close like in the pool scene in Little Children.

But then, this is a Pixar film that stars, among others, indie cool comedians Patton Oswalt and Janeane Garofalo. Not only was I not the only thirtysomething sitting alone in the audience, I wasn’t the only thirtysomething sitting in the audience reading a book. There was a smattering of kids but they were outnumbered by the adults by at least two to one. Even better, the father sitting behind me was quizzing his kids. True or false, it’s okay to kick the seat in front of you. False! This was going to be an unusually good movie experience.

Among Pixar’s many talents is, apparently, the ability to tame the downtown movie audience for two hours, adults and kids alike. Ratatouille kept this crowd focused enough that they forgot to talk or be rude (the exception being the adults to my left). Ratatouille is a wonderful story perfectly realized in every detail. Remy the rat is a sort of rodent Don Quixote, pursuing his dream of becoming a chef in Paris after being separated from his family. There he meets Linguine, a down and out kid trying to find a job he can hold down. They meet in a restaurant founded by the now deceased Auguste Gusteau, whose mantra, “anyone can cook,” Remy has adopted for himself.

And there are no self-indulgent technical fireworks – everything serves the story. Shadows are deeper, gravity works perfectly. There are amazing action and chase scenes, but they all further the plot. The Paris skyline is beautifully rendered, in day and nighttime scenes, not to show off, but to provide Remy’s inspiration. There is legitimate physical comedy reminiscent of John Cleese’s best silly walk in the way Remy and Linguine interact in the kitchen. The Pixar team even found a more clever way to solve the problem of the language barrier between humans and animals. And you won’t find a more brilliant (and economical) use of a flashback.

Animated movies tend to be packed with star power in a way that’s distracting to the character development. You want a wacky character, cast Robin Williams and the audience will bring their own ready-made expectations. Ratatouille avoids that brilliantly. Patton Oswalt plays a perfect geeked-out gourmand, and there was no better choice to play venomous food critic Anton Ego than Peter O’Toole. Janeane Garofalo, Brad Garrett, Ian Holm, Brian Dennehy, Will Arnett, and the ubiquitous John Ratzenberger are the core cast, but you won’t find yourself drifting trying to place each voice. Most everyone has some sort of accent that hides their identity a bit, and nothing sounds overacted or out of place.

Without a doubt, all the characters are furry and cuddly and will move a lot of stuffed animals and happy meals. But Pixar goes beyond cute. Cute is easy – you can draw cute on a matchbook. Charming is hard, and that’s what Ratatouille pulls off.