Comments on: Review of American Gangster - review http://bifsniff.com/film-tv/review-of-american-gangster-review Arts & culture blog based in Cork Ireland Wed, 03 Dec 2008 07:44:52 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.3 By: Eoin http://bifsniff.com/film-tv/review-of-american-gangster-review#comment-45081 Eoin Sun, 20 Jan 2008 17:08:07 +0000 http://bifsniff.com/indefinable/review-of-american-gangster-review#comment-45081 Finally saw it last night. Watchable but disappointing. I think my major issue with it is that, as you say, it wasn't anything new. As a result of this it was similar to what I had seen before. There were a few scenes where I felt they were tempted to re-create scenes from the Godfather but just stopped themselves at the last minute. I personally would rather they had a few homage scenes than copying them and trying to get away with it, like they did. I felt that both the Frank Lucas part and the cop part would have benefited from different casting. Washington was too clean cut and not at all believable as a brutal gangster. (You'd think Ridley Scott would have learnt that from his brother Tony's Man On Fire) and, as much as I love Russel Crowe as an actor, I felt he was just to big a personality for this part. Still a watchable film but I would rather watch something laughably bad than something that should and could have been so much better. Finally saw it last night. Watchable but disappointing. I think my major issue with it is that, as you say, it wasn’t anything new. As a result of this it was similar to what I had seen before. There were a few scenes where I felt they were tempted to re-create scenes from the Godfather but just stopped themselves at the last minute. I personally would rather they had a few homage scenes than copying them and trying to get away with it, like they did.

I felt that both the Frank Lucas part and the cop part would have benefited from different casting. Washington was too clean cut and not at all believable as a brutal gangster. (You’d think Ridley Scott would have learnt that from his brother Tony’s Man On Fire) and, as much as I love Russel Crowe as an actor, I felt he was just to big a personality for this part.

Still a watchable film but I would rather watch something laughably bad than something that should and could have been so much better.

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