Popular reviews

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  Review by Aaron T. Rex ★★★★★ 4

  Ain't no man with swagger like 'Zel. The way he says "my man" earns 5 stars by itself.

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  Review by Jay ★★★★ 3

  ridley scott: here is the story of a rags to riches boss through illegal trade with a law enforcement hell bent on taking him down

  me: we've heard this story before

  ridley: AND YOU'LL HEAR IT AGAIN

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  Review by Sam Meltzer ★★★★ 9

  Something that usually goes completely ignored that I would like to focus on is Ruby Dee’s arc as Mama Lucas, specifically how the relationship between Frank and his mother may be limited in terms of screen time yet still struck me as one of the more powerful moments in the film. Her character is used for two reasons: to show Frank’s love for his mother and how she might be the only person who can strike him deeply on an emotional level. The main drive of the story shows how he becomes the outlet for crime within his neighborhood. The murder, robbery, and most notably, drug trafficking were ways in which he expressed his menacing persona. 

  To try and prove…

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  Review by Sean Fennessey ★★★½ 7

  The final 10 minutes feel truly momentous and hardly anything else does. Crowe and Denzel toe-to-toe, trading sweeping proclamations about the past and the future, refugees from their chosen lifestyles connecting to reroute their destinies; Josh Brolin splattering a sun shield with blood after pressing his Smith & Wesson to his chin; Frank Lucas exiting prison to the perfectly synced sound of 1991 Public Enemy, facing a new world order all alone. I love the idea of Ridley Scott’s merciless sense of grandeur and Harris Savides’ scratchy, naturalistic camera building a slick-scummy vision of ‘70s New York, but there’s something sort of perfunctory about the way it plays until the final 10. I kept thinking about what it would be like…

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  Review by Andy Summers 🤠 ★★★★★ 2

  Everyone in law enforcement in the U.S. in the sixties found it impossible to believe that anyone could challenge the Mafia in terms of organized crime. Drugs, Racketeering, Prostitution, they ran it all. Even when the spiraling drug epidemic threatened to destroy a generation of young Americans, few could believe that a black man from Harlem would be the brains behind the city's whole drug supply. American Gangster charts the rise of Frank Lucas and a story as unassuming as his low-key persona that kept him out of the limelight.
  Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington) decided to cut out the middle men in a quest for pure quality heroin. He traveled to the Golden Triangle to buy hundreds of kilos of…

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  Review by Josh Lewis ★★★ 4

  this is mostly fine/competent (or at least my general enjoyment of seeing character actors i like operating in this genre milieu/fun 70s period detail is carrying it), and denzel does manage to locate some depth to this arc by the end but quite a few stretches of it have ridley asleep at the wheel, going through the most obvious, deseprate motions of scorsese crime epic prestige while delivering on very little of the personality/formal energy and not really doing anything in the text you couldn't find already done way better in black caeser or across 110th street at half the length.

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  Review by Jacob Knight ★★★★

  Aged like a fine wine. What felt underwhelming in theaters is now an incredibly re-watchable cops and gangsters procedural, and also the first in Ridley's later period opulent true crime maximalist melodramas (you can draw a straight line through this, ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD, and, finally, HOUSE OF GUCCI). Denzel oozes quiet menace in every scene, and it's a great reminder that Crowe used to be really sexy and exciting until he entered his Fat Val Kilmer Years (which are, admittedly, wildly entertaining in their own way). The cast is stacked. Josh Brolin and John Hawkes eat cigarettes by the fistful (one of the great smoking movies), and the RZA would've fit in perfectly in a vintage Blaxploitation picture. RIP Harris Savides; between this and ZODIAC, I wish you'd shot every period piece, as it's all about grimy texture instead of gaudy costuming.

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  Review by Michael James ★★★★½

  Watched the extended cut, it’s a thoroughly engrossing 3 hour biographical cop gangster crime saga from Ridley Scott, that’s dominated by the ever charismatic performer in Denzel Washington and the dynamic Russell Crowe, well supported by the rest of cast. The narrative maintains a tense atmosphere throughout, powered by its terrific dialogues, masterful direction, solid soundtrack and brilliant production design, replicating the 70s NY effectively. The slow burn drama has its lags, but the superlative filmmaking and performances, make it nothing short of an epic classic.

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  Review by MarMar ★★★★ 1

  Despite it’s almost 3hr runtime, I was surprisingly engaged all throughout. With Denzel being as charismatic and smooth like always, he held this whole thing together. I loved how it’s more of a crime drama told through the timeline of the Vietnam war than a normal biopic. Boasting with a stacked cast, a great performance by Denzel and Russell Crowe, this is without a doubt in the upper echelon of Ridley Scott films

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  Review by comrade_yui ★★★★★

  the impossible fact that we have to face is that there is no simple figurehead, no big bad guy that can embody everything that we hate about society, there's no one to ultimately blame, no grand evil plan put in place by some egomaniac. dracula isn't hanging out in his castle; there's no ideology to dismiss or books to burn. the scary, impossible fact is that the adversary has no name, it's the unconscious way we go about our lives, the system that nobody thinks about, the little things that get lost for the sake of convenience. the enemy is the illusions that power builds around itself. there is no grand conspiracy, there is no control. only chaos. individuals mean…

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  Review by TheCloser79 ★★★★ 1

  The true story of one of the most powerful drug lords in the United States: Frank Lucas builds a crime empire in New York at the time of the Vietnam War, he bribes the police, judges and prosecutors and allies himself with the mafia families to protect himself from competition. Only one man stands in his way: the drug investigator Roberts.
  Director Ridley Scott tells the rough gangster story with epic breath and big pictures. The excellent, mostly calm camera work gives the film an elegance from the start that corresponds to the appearance of the main characters: tough, but with style. The plot runs at a leisurely narrative pace, but without the viewer being bored for a longer time.…

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  Review by Cinema Strikes Back ★★★★

  Klarer Appell gegen das Tragen von Pelz (M)