American Ganster Review

Hey look, I missed two days again! I'm gonna blame the WGA Strike for that one.

Anyway, why haven't you seen American Gangster yet? Are you really that busy? Are you dead inside?

You should really leave work right now and go catch a matinee. It's definitely an awards contender and one of the best movies of the year. Real quick, if you've been living under a rock: Denzel Washington plays a badass Harlem druglord that loves his momma, Russell Crowe is a womanizing cop and a bad father, but doesn't take bribe money so he's assigned to bring Washington down.

The whole thing's directed by Ridley Scott, who knows his soul music surprisingly well for a septuagenarian white-guy. The cast is rounded out by plenty of great bit players: Chiwetel Ejiafor, Josh Brolin, Cuba Gooding Jr., and a couple of rappers, apparently. There's really not a wrong note in the bunch, either- even Cuba Gooding Jr.'s recent scenery-chewing ethos is put to good use as a rival, flamboyantly flashy drug lord that Washington has to put in his place.

American Gangster takes a meticulous first hour to build up, and the two leads don't really cross paths for a long time- in fact, Crowe's team of agents doesn't even suspect that a black man is in charge of the new drug ring until over halfway through. But Washington's journey from driver to overlord and Crowe's Serpico-like quiet righteousness within the police force could fill up separate movies by themselves, so it's only sweeter when they become unlikely allies near the films end.

As many other, professional reviewers have noted, American Gangster takes great strides to avoid glamorizing Washington's character, both by showing his ridiculous temper, and the effect that heroin has on the people that use it. And the "paradoxical" morals of the two main characters makes it more than a simple crime movie about good v. evil. It helps, of course, that it's all based on real life, and makes me want to read various crime-lord biographies right after the credits roll.

The public has spoken as well, and it looks like we might have the only blockbuster to be recognized come awards season. Don't miss it.

Seriously, why are you still sitting there?

When to See It: Yesterday

3:10 To Yuma Review

With all the goodwill that Christian Bale has built up among discerning movie-goers between Batman Begins, The Prestige, and generally having an anti-Affleckian ability to choose good scripts, it’s easy to root for him in 3:10 to Yuma as soon as he appears onscreen.

His sunken-eyed, world weary portrayal of a Civil War veteran is already so emotionally bare that we don’t even need his wet-blanket wife (Gretchen Mol) or his annoying puissant son (Logan Lerman) to get us on his side, and this is even before the local railroad company burns down his barn to drive his family off their small plot of land.

And just in case your heart is made of stone, he’s got a wooden leg from the war, too.

Russell Crowe, however, is immediately likeable as a psychotic outlaw. He sketches things, he woos the ladies, he cracks jokes, and he’s not quite as nuts as his uber-psycho right hand man (Ben Foster), so we warm up to him quickly as well.

So when Bale joins the posse bringing Crowe to justice, justice being a train to Yuma prison, it’s hard to not to cheer as the other members begin to get knocked off along the way, victims of Crowe’s ruthlessness or troublesome Apaches, and the film begins to focus more on the interplay between the two.

Don’t get me wrong- all the supporting turns in this movie are good, especially Foster and a very grizzly Peter Fonda. It even has one of my favorite things in the world- the unexpected appearance of Alan Tudyk! (Seriously, I had no idea. Even Luke Wilson shows up for about two minutes. Surprisingly convincing as a yokel, too). But it’s Bale’s browbeaten determination and Crowe’s casual malevolence that eventually get your heart to jump with every gunshot in a finale that has hundreds of them.

The journey to bring Crowe to justice soon becomes Saving Private Ryan-like, in that you question the logic of a near-suicidal mission just on account of one man (why not just shoot him, and be done with it?) But it becomes quickly clear, as other characters find ample reason to turn back, that it’s about one man just trying to get something right for a goddamn change.

Bale is amazing, and he holds the movie together where it could falter. Before he leaves, in an impassioned speech to his wife, he drops lines a lot like “I’ve been running for three years, on one leg, and I’m tired of it.” It’s a speech that could have been awful and schmaltzy in a lesser actor’s hands, but he absolutely sells it.

Crowe is excellent, of course, but takes the background to Bale despite first billing, at least for me. Ultimately his character’s struggle is to balance his gradually growing respect for this tired, put upon rancher trying to bring him in against his own self interest.

When to See it: As Soon As Humanly Possible*

*Note: In lieu of things like stars, thumbs, grades, whatever, I’m going with a level of When to see it. The different levels:

As Soon As Humanly Possible
Before It Leaves Theatres
If You Get Around To It
On DVD
On Spike TV
When Hell Freezes Over