We rented the film American Gangster, which starred two huge Hollywood stars who barely spoke in the movie at all until the end, Russell Crow and Denzel Washington.  I’m a big fan of Russell Crowe, remembering what a great role he played in Ridley Scott’s Gladiator, but he failed to really pull me into this movie like he does in most other roles he plays.  Denzel is another story.  I’m not a big Denzel fan.  He just seems to play a limited range when he plays character who should be very diverse.

It was no different in American Gangster, which was hailed as a critical success and certainly enjoyed enough commercial success to be called an all around hit.  Russell Crowe plays a cop who is kind of a rebel (go figure), but who also happens to have a bit of a dislikeable habit of womanizing, so he’s not your typical good guy you love to hate, you just don’t really like him or relate to him throughout the movie, and I can’t explain why, but you just don’t connect (at least I didn’t).

The movie was also a bit two long, tallying to over two hours, and it was hard to follow, although I’m not sure if for me that was just because I found it utterly untinteresting and lacking likeability in the characters and in the situations.  It was directed by Ridley Scott, which shocked me, because I usually  like just about everything he does, but as they say, there are always exceptions to every rule, and this was one of those for me. 

We were actually going to turn this off about thirty minutes in, but I wanted to give it a chance.  Honestly, we should have.  It didn’t get any more engaging into the movie, which was too bad, because this could have been a really good movie if it was done right.  It seemed implausible in some way, even though it was supposedly based on a true story. 

It never seemed real.  It just didn’t strike that gritty cord it should have, and it’s not even something I could totally put my finger on for you.  I know there are lots of people that will disagree with me, since this movie was well received, so please post an opposing review of American Gangster if you have a different view