American Gangster

Sweet, Bloody Smell of Success

Greatness hovers just outside “American Gangster,” knocking, angling to be let in. Based in rough outline on the flashy rise and fall of a powerful 1970s New York drug lord, Frank Lucas, the film has been built for importance, with a brand-name director, Ridley Scott, and two major stars, Denzel Washington as Lucas, and Russell Crowe as Richie Roberts, the New Jersey cop who brings him down. It’s a seductive package, crammed with all the on-screen and off-screen talent that big-studio money can buy, and filled with old soul and remixed funk that evoke the city back in the day, when heroin turned poor streets white and sometimes red. [...]

di Manohla Dargis, articolo completo (8045 caratteri spazi inclusi) su The New York Times 2 Novembre 2007