It was an interesting evening at the AG premiere. The elements and the traffic made it a horror show to start. It took us an hour and a half to navigate the length of Manhattan from Soho to the Apollo. Although we managed to miss the downpour of rain on the way in, we dealt with it on the way out. We were seated in the nose bleed section, last row of the theater in the balcony. The seats were uncomfortable mostly because we were sitting, all told, for almost 5 hours. The good news was that we got to see the red carpet arrivals broadcast on the screen and it was fun to catch up with a few friends and see Murph and Mary Beth again.
American Gangster is a powerful film. Although the movie is a story about the contrast of the lives of two men, it displays all the degradation and destruction that was brought about by Frank Lucas and the drug business he ran. There are moments that take your breath away because of the violence that ruled the day and the human toll of addiction that was realistically depicted.
Denzel gave a commanding performance. He was the businessman who in another career choice would have succeeded without question. Most of his most impressive scenes were non verbal; a look or a gesture was all he needed to convey the emotion of many scenes.
Russell again ‘became’ Richie Roberts. I am continually amazed to see him give a performance that is separate and distinct from his previous roles. His Richie isn’t just a foil for Frank Lukas; he’s a conflicted contrast. Richie isn’t an ideologue and his conviction doesn’t seem to come from a place of absolutes. As Russell plays him he’s a man who tries to do the right thing because it’s just the right thing to do. He’s all gut reaction and his gut tries to see thing as clearly as it can given the chaos, both situational and self inflicted, in his life. He’s far from a saint, but he refuses to be dragged and coerced into a sinner’s life.
For me the true joy of this film was the visual images that Ridley Scott created. As I sat in that theater I was reminded of the first time I saw Blade Runner and how captivating yet alienating that world was. I was blown away with his depiction of New York/Harlem. He created a tableau that soaked up the atmosphere of that time and created an artistic montage. A simple, almost still frame of a apartment building looked like a cubist painting. The grit of the city streets, the squalor of a drug house in juxtaposition to the luxury of the lifestyle that was made possible by the drug trade was vivid and unflinching. Beyond the visual there is the evocative musical score. Besides having songs from the Seventies giving you a time and place feel, there was one scene that was almost operatic in tone. We’ve seen stills from this scene many times but when Ridley put this same scene to music, it became a culminating moment, overwhelming and something that gives me goose bumps even now when I think of it. It was all done without Frank or Richie saying a word, just the music, body language and expressions carried this commanding scene.
As others have described, the event after the movie in the tent was more than chaotic. It was an elaborate affair, lots of food and drink but it was also hot and incredibly crowded. I don’t know what the organizers were thinking in that Russell’s table was seemingly in the middle of Grand Central station and he was swamped in a sea of people passing by but it was great to see Russell again along with the other now familiar faces. Dani looked beautiful and I really liked the color of her gown. Russell’s long hair, no doubt affected by all the heat and humidity, could have qualified for a Zip Code all of its own! LOL! I certainly don’t blame him for not staying very long in that hectic atmosphere. And speaking of ‘swamped’, a part of the tent suffered the same fate as the rain started to pour down in buckets just before we called it a night! |