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Ridley has done it again. He's given us a great film about a bold, negro gangster and a Jersey police detective charged with bringing down drug kingpins. We see their parallel stories as Denzel rises to top drug lord and Crowe pursues him as best he can.
The film is in the neighborhood of three hours and completely compelling. This is not another Harlem shoot-out but a fully developed story that hits all the significant high spots of Denzel building his empire from his trips to Thailand to doing deals with the Italians (Assante, who else?) to make things happen. Oh, let's not forget NYC's particularly sleazy police force of 60's and 70's.
Great cast and performances get kudos all around, especially for Denzel's momma who has a surprising dramatic scene with her errant son. Perhaps the weakest link is the actress playing Denzel's wife.
One of the year's best, no doubt. This and Jesse will be duking it out for nominations.
.
Complicit Constapo Talibangelical since MMIII
Follow Ups:
...I thought it was very well done, if not the best film ever.
It will be up for a Best Picture Academy Award, IMO.
And I haven't heard anyone educated call a Black person a "negro" since about 1980, outside of the movies.
Hardly any tension in any scene: you've seen it all before, anyway.
Denzel gives a spectacular performance in a wasted cause. Denby, in The New Yorker, pans the film because of its lack of a moral viewpoint which he finds a key component of Goodfellas and Godfather II. I don't particularly care if monsters are glorified if the film itself has other strong qualities: this one doesn't.
Crowe has many scenes, many in which you'd expect to get some fireworks but... nothing.
Forget this and rent your favorite old favorite. Heat, for one, shows a master criminal in a much better film.
I was kind of shocked at the lack of drama in this film, it certainly doesn't look like the same guy's work who made Blade Runner.
SPOILER:
The evil cop, who did enough stuff to Denzel to make one wish for some kind of showdown, removes himself in what must be the most disappointing resolution in modern crime film. If you're going to paint the guy as Satan, let his fall be worthwhile.
Remember Popeye and the French Connection films?
Now that was a convincing cop.
Crowe looked like he had so very much appreciated the mousy depiction which Matt Damon gave of a CIA agent in The Good Shepherd that he followed that boring example.
What a waste of two good actors...
Your critique strikes me as hollow and pretentious....but you are entitled.
I liked the film and found it engaging and well done. Seems that with a fully fictional story, one has abundantly more freedom than with recounting an actual series of events and characters. So you live with the 'fireworks' that make up the story. I suspect that had they [Scotts] inserted artifice in this way, you and many others would be equally unhappy with the result.
But I don't get out so much as you and Victor/Patrick I guess.
Nevertheless. :)
Later
D
I can recall a few gangster movies that were based on true events but were done way better than American Gangster. Those that come to mind :
-Carlito's Way
-A Bronx Tale
-Goodfellas
-American Me
AG is a good movie but could have been a lot better with some more suspense and action elements. Denzel & Russel were great but I was hoping for a 'Training Day' like performance from Denzel..:)
I guess it was how Ridley envisionned it....
AP
# The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men # Jules Winnfield(Ezekiel 25:17)> Pulp Fiction <
And I found your comments shallow, condescending, insulting, and puerile.
Adjectives are such fun.
in the entertainment industry.
Story telling is it. This worked for me...but for you apparantly it didn't. Does that make the film 'good' or not...or just not appealing to you?
Do you watch movies from the standpoint of artistic merit, story telling, information or overall entertainment value?
I would usually hesitate to pursue this subjective relativist argument for art, but movies are different from other art forms. I can find reviews that say almost anything about the same movie, so what does that mean? Is one more valid and objective than another? If so, whose?
I find this particular forum pretty drenched in condescending, self congratulatory snootiness. Where certain films will always be met with the same kind of predictable dismissal that I wonder if the poster even bothered to watch. The thread concerning Michael Clayton being a good example. I hate to see you drawn down into that arrogance.
Me, I always sound arrogant. It is something I have to work with....
I don't care if you 'specialize' in obscure 50's B&W Asian film or whatever. I just think you should be honest about your critical 'reviews'. If you know you won't like something why bother spending the time and money?
Don't take me wrong though, I liked your post....condescentional adjectives and all. :)
But Purile?
Later
D
should a film's creative team take dramatic license with the subject matter, that may be very personal and important to someone, and change it to make it more exciting, to the extent that the finished product has little to do with the actual events? Then again, one person's boring is another person's cup of tea. Certainly, some feel that Bergman is boring. Of course, I have no doubt you would hurl some colorful adjective their way to describe their intellectual capacity for not appreciating a director who made films which are anything but boring. Perhaps you failed to appreciate the nuances in the story?
I am finishing up Black Book, which I'll likely write about here, a very suspenseful film allegedly based upon a true story in Holland during WWII. How accurate? I do not know. But I'd like to think that films I see based upon "true events" are actually close to the truth, and not some screenwriter's desire to cater to the populist notion of "excitement", and the need for a payoff.
expends mighty intellectual effort in criticizing him on those alleged attributes.
Ya want a bud with that herring?
It's an imperfect world. Anyone that watches a film based on "real" events, or a book, thinking he is going to get a carbon copy is naive.
Artists don't copy, they interpret.
You seem to confuse fiction films with documentaries.
Not sure what such and such is. Is that like yada yada? Sorry, I'm not smart enough to follow that extensive vocabulary. I never wrote about a "carbon copy." I assumed you would be smart enough to figure out the point of my post. I gave you too much credit. For that, I apologize.In a film based upon real events, I expect a film maker to take some liberties. I assume Mel Gibson did it with Passion of the Christ, because, well, everyone who was there was dead, and I do not trust those that tell me God commuicates with them. So I expect some liberties.
The question, dear Tinman, is not whether a filmmaker, should take some liberties, and they do, but why. Are they taking some liberties because they have no choice, i.e. that an historical record is missing some fact. Or are they taking a liberty to make the film more "exciting" to the audience, knowing the real story. Case in point is the Disney film "Iron Will", based upon true events. In the film, the lad wins the race. In real life, he never even finished.
You often spend too much time here critisizing viewers who are lazy, and expect the filmmaker to hand them everything. Here, I argue that the filmmaker should present a "true story" as true as possible without embellishing the truth to make the facts seem more exciting, in other words, let the audience come to them, and you have an issue. Grits is right. You just like to argue.
"Artists don't copy, they interpret."
Obviously. Again, the issue, which you fail to understand, is not whether they interpret, but how, and why. If an artist draws a real horse to look like a dog, it is no longer a horse, but rather a dog, regardless of what the subject looked like.
"You seem to confuse fiction films with documentaries."
You confuse fiction films with non-fiction. Perhaps you meant to write that I confuse dramatic films with documentaries. Dramatic films can be fiction, or non-fiction. Documentaries are generally non-fiction, except in Michael Moore's case, in which case they can also be be fiction.
Neither one of us ever will know the "why" of a director's mind; he probably doesn't know, himself.
I don't know the truth behind the events in Black Book and I'd wager you don't, either.
It's poor film making, no matter the truth or non-truth of it.
I especially liked your film categories. Drama, no comedy films, Jim?
You may wish to ponder why filmmakers say, "based on a true story," instead of just "a true story."
It's called artistic license.
At any rate, an SS top officer, who supervised and was present during years of torturing prisoners and responsible for the rendering of Jews, falls in love with an attractive Jewish girl and... my God! He's being fitted for a yarmulke!
I don't know what's more ridiculous, the film or those that try to defend such bullshit.
"I don't know the truth behind the events in Black Book and I'd wager you don't, either."Then perhaps you should stop calling it bullshit, if you do not know that it is bullshit. This is the difference between us. You do not know the facts, but are content to spout opinions about things you know nothing about - blaming a director for the content of the film without knowing whether it is the director making the choice, or the facts making the choice for the director. I, on the other hand, am willing to accept that the relationship did occur as depicted, as I do not know differently, and prefer to judge the director's merit on not what the film demonstrated, but how it did so.
You may wish to ponder why filmmakers say, "based on a true story," instead of just "a true story."
It's called artistic license."Do you read any posts? Or remember them beyond the period of time it took you to type your mindless responses? I previously used the example of Passion of the Christ. I assume that Mel Gibson took some artistic license. But the underlying premise - that Christ was heinously tortured on route to his crucifiction, remains intact. Similarly, because a director or screenwriter uses some artistic license does not mean that the underlying facts are fabricated, or, to use a term from your voluminous vocabulary, "bullshit."
"I especially liked your film categories. Drama, no comedy films, Jim?"
Not only can't you read, you are apparently stupid as well. See, I used the word "drama" because it was clear that you were confusing "drama" with "fiction." If Black Book had been a comedy, then I would have used the word "comedy." I doubt that cleared things up for you, but there you go.
"At any rate, an SS top officer, who supervised and was present during years of torturing prisoners and responsible for the rendering of Jews, falls in love with an attractive Jewish girl and... my God! He's being fitted for a yarmulke!"
Ah, sarcasm. The last bastion of the empty headed. When you have nothing intelligent to add, throw out sarcasm. I know you are having difficulty in reading retention, but you should review another post in which I provided my opinion that he should have been executed with the rest of them. Missed that, did you? On the other, I am curious, what would a death penalty opponent such as yourself have done with him? Care to answer that?
"It's poor film making"
In typical Tinhead fashion, you are great at providing conclusions, weak at providing analysis. So far, we have a relationship (that the resistance instructed her to enter) between a Jewish woman and an SS Officer. Man, you are insightful. You like the Wizard of Oz because of Dorothy's red shoes?
Your entire argument against the film boils down to your opposition of a Jewish woman falling for an SS officer. It is clear that your mind requires, and cannot move outside, those boundaries. All Nazis are evil. All Nazis murdered innocent people. All Nazis are beyond human redemption, and cannot change. Any film that attempts to show the grey is bad.
I have, in the past, drawn attention to your hyprocrisy. One parting shot. Regarding "Dead Man Walking" you write: "Penn is Sean, of course. Have you seen "Dead Man Walking"? This is a very good film but contains an excellent performance---he should have received 2 Oscars."
A comment I agree with. Odd, though. Penn plays a sadistic killer of two innocent people, who spends 90% of the film denying he did anything wrong, whom Penn redeems into a human being with his performance. And you like it. Here we have an SS Officer, who we do not see, or know of anyone he killed, only that he was a member of an evil organization, and you condemn the film out of hand because it humanizes the latter. You love the human portrayal of the former.
With that, this discourse is over, for me.
and Crowe doing Brooklyn Rules, that would have been really stellar. I enjoyed BR much more, though it still can't hold a candle to masterpieces like De Niro's 'A Bronx Tale' or indeed "Goodfellas' etc..
AP
# The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men # Jules Winnfield(Ezekiel 25:17)> Pulp Fiction <
when it did there were no sparks. The sparks were Brolin and Washington.
That why Brolin blew his brains out. And, it did make Frank a "likeable" guy when he cooperated with Crowe. Besides, if I had said I hated it you would have loved it. It's your pattern.
.
Complicit Constapo Talibangelical since MMIII
I like you and Tinear, so lets leave the fisticuffs for the aholes that reside here. We all know who they are, no reason for you two level headed guys to go at it.
Maybe but that would be an instant appeal issue. The jury would never know when he is speaking from first hand experience or when as an attorney for the State of NY. If its true, that is the worst judge in the world, next to Lance Ito, who allowed it.
however, boring is boring.
When the guy blows his brains out, it's done matter-of-factly which, at that point, is a massive let down for the film.
I have no problem agreeing with your opinions when they're good ones ;-0
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