Not too long ago, filmmakers searching for titles discovered a foolproof formula: Take the one word your film is about, slap American"" in front of it and there you go. Filmgoers have recently experienced ""American"" films of the ""Psycho,"" ""Pimp,"" ""Farm,"" ""Gun"" and most pointlessly, ""Movie"" variety, making the construct more meaningless each time.
""American [noun]"" is usually a cop-out, but there can be a subtle message in it - a suggestion that the subject could only have arisen from, and that the film is the apotheosis of the subject's history in, America.
Does Ridley Scott's new mob film, ""American Gangster,"" succeed in being this kind of epitome? The answer is a resounding not really, but ""American Gangster"" is still worthwhile, even if it falls short of the greatness it desperately tries to grasp.
Denzel Washington plays Frank Lucas, a black man who briefly rises above the Italian Mafia in 1970s New York heroin trade. Lucas summons his huge family from North Carolina to start what amounts to a black Cosa Nostra. Washington, who's always been more of a movie star than an actor, does what he always does, and his ever-present New York accent and quiet intensity work just fine here. Lucas' ascent is followed by Russell Crowe, playing honest cop Richie Roberts, who is superb as usual in a very low-key performance.
A black Mafioso film is a tantalizing idea and, though rarely attempted, has long been a favorite concept of rappers who, perhaps not coincidentally, are well-represented in a cast that includes RZA, Common and T.I. The fact that the protagonists are black rather than Italian, Jewish or Irish is an interesting wrinkle, but it's still just a wrinkle.
Ultimately there isn't much about Lucas' organization that hasn't been seen before, be it the emphasis on family or the implication that crime is the only entrepreneurship open to immigrants or minorities.
Rather than tackling the potentially sensitive race issue head-on, Scott is more interested in paying homage to both the good and the bad of '70s crime cinema. He employs a retro cinematography style, heavy on pans and zooms while promoting the Scorsesian idea that getting a woman to have sex with you takes roughly the same effort as ordering a pizza. There are a few amusing jaunts into the blaxploitative: Lucas' heroin ""factory"" is staffed exclusively by naked women. (So ""they won't steal anything."" Right.)
It seems at times that Scott wants ""American Gangster"" to be the culminating celebration of the 1970s New York mob film, the final word on this well-trodden topic. It fails, though, since it's never willing to be the epic it thinks it is.
When Michael Corleone's empire crumbles, he utterly destroys himself and his family; when Lucas' crumbles, Scott asks us to feel the same level of drama when he gets slapped once by his mother.
But ""American Gangster"" is still an entertaining film. Washington and Crowe in the same movie is a rare treat, and commendable supporting performances are turned in by Chiwetel Ejiofor and a particularly intense Cuba Gooding Jr., who has lately descended into irrelevance by taking roles in the likes of ""Daddy Day Camp.""
If nothing else, it's fun to watch the old rags-to-riches story that, on film anyway, only seems to happen in the American melting pot. ""American Gangster"" is an effective tribute to the unique crime films of the United States, even if it's an overambitious one. It may not define the genre, but it remains a story that was made in America.
