American Gangster (2007)

This is the hit now at every box office in the States. Only this fact made me a bit suspicious about Ridley Scott's epic movie, otherwise every leaked out details enforced my expectations.

American Gangster. That's a statement already. Sounds like The Godfather, the Chinatown or the Gladiator. These titles occupy geographically or grammatically a certain, quite broad area with their clear aim: to visualize, to summarize our views on some wider fields. They stand for some kind of values and common knowledges. They are using and reinforcing these knowledges of ours. They vindicate their place in the history of these knowledges, in the history of film.

And we are not far from this registers: I mean the film is some kind of 'Black Godfather'. I know it sounds very bad, even the cops didn't believe in its possible existence. And this is the point where the movie can work. When we hear the word 'mafia' our associations provide us an Italian Brando- or Pesci-like "pronunciation". But for sure not Denzel Washington. And this way of thinking and a perfect idea give a chance to Frank Lucas (played by D.W.) to organize an invisible crime establishment.
If we have a mob then we need a cop too. Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe) is definitely the most honest cop in the (film) history. He isn't as good as he was last time in the 3:10 to Yuma, but still better than thousand of his obsessed predecessors. They are together can't reach the level of de Niro's and Pacino's couple (I think on this and not this), but they are far good enough to keep your eyes on the canvas for more than two hours.

The story starts in 1968, the time when in its Vietnam background America turns into a "super fucking discount store", when "you can't find a heart of anything". In this level it's unnecessary to talk about the perfectionism of the set, characters and atmosphere. If you have ever played with the GTA then you know what I am talking about. (If not, check this picture from the film:)


Of course you should watch this movie even with its unavoidable problems, which are coming from its – above mentioned – summarizing efforts. 'The dignity in business', 'the importance of family', 'the unbreakable honesty', and my favorites: the "never forget where we are come from"-attitude and the worn-out "This is America"-bullshit. These and many other already exploited topics and their typical words of stereotypical approaches sound quite funny in 2007. Everything is too direct, everything showed and said as it is. But hey, it's shouldn't be a documentary or an Armageddon-like heroic blabber in front of an American flag (don't afraid it isn't)!

I almost gave 7 out of 10, but the (almost) final conversation between Frank and Richie forced me to give one extra point. With this and even more points on the imdb (8.4 on 15-11-2007) this epic movie is maybe overestimated. At least it shouldn't be at the 107th place of the all time best movies, especially not 7 places behind Scott's much universal classic, the Blade Runner.

8/10

The French Connection (1971)

"Mr. Devereaux, is this your first trip to New York? Why did you choose to come by ship?"

The strong Gene Hackman, the ugly Fernando Rey, and the cool Roy Scheider. Finally I paid a really old debt today when I decided to watch William Friedkin's The French Connection (5 Oscars!). I remember, when I was around ten sitting in our local movie theater waiting for the E.T. checking all the stills from the forthcoming films. It was approximately the middle of the eighties (back to my home country that time we had to wait really a lot for some of the films), and that time I was sure that this movie wasn't made for me. Blue-grey colors, dark smelly streets, raincoats and long American cars. It looked too real. Some years, even a decade later the movies from the '70s became my favorite ones, but somehow this classic slided out from my hand. I suppose the reason was the director himself. Here is the time to confess, that The Exorcist (1973) is really not among my all time best films...

But. Step back two years in time. The 'connection between the axis of Marseille and New York is about drugs of course. 1971. The streets of Brooklyn are starving for some dope; the demand is really high (higher than the under construction WTC towers already visible in the background). Alain Charnier (for me he remains Bunuel's Ray) is the French connection, who promises 60 kilograms 89% pure junk. An "absolute dynamite". According to this circumstances, he is planning to deal with the highest distributors: Weinstock is the head of the New York drug mafia, they and even more their interest found each other pretty easily. But - as it used to be - there are cops in these kind of tales, too. Popeye (Hackman's Oscar winning acting, his best after (chronologically before) as Harry Caul in Coppola's masterful The Conversation) and Russo (Scheider couldn't participate in the sequel, because he was shooting another important classic in 1975...) get the tail of the case accidentally. And these guy's instincts are never at fault. At least not in Hollywood.
What I really liked is the way how the film is developing their investigation. The movie tells as much to its viewer as Popeye and Russo understands the pieces. We learn step by step the role of all the characters, who first seem like some never solvable puzzle...

Two more things. The minimalist score is a perfect choice. Don Ellis' "music" isn't a real soundtrack, it is more only the "sound" of the heights of the scenes. Connected to this, another plus is the atmosphere: The recent American Gangster isn't a bad one at all, but I starkly assert that if Ridley Scott's film gave the real feeling of the late '60s, early '70s, then after Friedkin's atmospheric realism you might take a shower.

"Did you pick your feet in Poughkeepsie?" :))

Watch it, of course.

9/10

We Own the Night (2007)

1988. New York, Brooklyn. We see original black and white pictures taken from the N.Y. police. Smooth trumpet ballad accompanies the photos. We are sliding into the soft eighties...

... but suddenly BOOM: neon colors, fat disco music (Blondie: Heart of Glass, definitely yeah!), and even fatter face of Joaquin Phoenix as Bobby climbing on Eva Mendes as Amada. I have to say that this scene is the strongest of the film.

Why I say this? Just take a quick look on the first five minutes of the movie! So we have Bobby, who runs the biggest and trendiest club, El Caribe in Brooklyn. The place is full with suspicious characters, the drog is in the air, but in the pockets for sure. The owner is a Russian fur-importeur (hmm, who believes this?), the family man Marat Buzhayev. Glittering, breath-taking party in the club.

...Fade in black...

Another party in Brooklyn. Dusty, smokey ballroom. The police is celebrating. The situation introduces all the characters in a second: Joseph (Wahlberg, again...) the honourable perfect cop, and his boss, Albert (Duvall, again and again...), who is - you won't find out - Joseph's father. Very original, but it's still nothing: of course Bobby is another son of the police chief, as Joseph's brother. And you know all these infos within the first 5-10 minutes. Didactic situation? Classic drama of oppositions (haha, the producers are Wahlberg and Phoenix)? Professionally tight story-establisment? You can decide, but one thing is sure: no one can compress as much clichés into such a short storytime than the director James Gray (no, he is not F. Gary Gray).

Maybe no need to go into more details about the story, just for safety: the police wants to catch the Russians, who "must something to do with the drug on the streets", and Bobby looks very good for the role to infiltrate into the family...

I won't continue not because of killing the points of the film (if you are more than 12 you know already what will happen), but to answer the question above (if I didn't do already..). The biggest problem is with Gray's film that it lacks any kind of originality. I mean it is really disturbing how predictable it is. Departed (which is as we know already a copy), American Gangster, L.A. Confidential (the best within the genre) and so on, just pick out examples among the very well known ones.

We Own the Night is a weak (the acting is terrible, the worst example is Danny Hoch in Jumbo's role, he is ridiculous), but at least mediocre copy, even it was predictible that these kind of clone-films will flood the cinemas.

Average film - average entertainment (even the feelgood music and the desperate search for atmosphere (see the effort of accuracy of the WTC towers' soft presence..) couldn't help) = usually 5 points, but "thanks" for the unbelievable waste ending even minus one.

4/10