American Gangster [Blu-ray]

Have been waiting for this on Blu-ray! (2008-12-24) Rating: 5/5
This movie is great! The wait was worth it. It took so long for the Blu-ray release but everything about it is top notch!
Fantastic Movie but with Disc Problems (2008-12-19) Rating: 4/5
The movie itself was amazing. I love most movies With Denzel Washington in them. For some reason though, the HD side of my disc would not play. It is almost like the manufacturer just did not put any data on the HD side. When you look at the HD side of the disc, there is no line where the data stops. The SD side works fine though. Unfortunately, I did not actually attempt to play the HD side on my HD DVD player until long after the return policy was up. This was probably just an isolated incident which is why I still gave it 4 stars. The movie itself is definitely 5 stars. Be sure you check both sides of the disc within the time limit of the return policy. Besides that, enjoy this great movie!
American Gangster... (2008-12-02) Rating: 5/5
The positive reviews' already written says it all. The scene where Denzel's Lucas burns the $50,000 Chinchilla coat said it all for me. See what happen's when you show off? You draw unwanted attention to yourself! Lucas was on top of the world and still ended up in jail, his family in ruins. Great film (and object lesson) for the interested.

I rate this movie: 5 stars!


Gritty Gangster Epic (2008-12-01) Rating: 4/5
Ridley Scott's American Gangster is a gritty portrait of the New York drug underworld in the early 1970's. With great performances by both DenzelWashington as drug kingpin Frank Lucas and Russell Crowe as cop Richie Roberts the film takes on both the gangster lifestyle and the currupt police problem of New York.

The film has all the earmarks of an epic. The story written by Steve Zaillian, while a bit long at times, effectively portrays life on the streets at the time period. The camara work by Harris Savides is both gritty and dark.

The disc I viewed was the HD DVD and while presenting a great picture and sound field is not without its problems. Now that HD has fallen to Blu Ray this may just be a passing footnote to the industry. The disc presents both the HD movie and the standard definition extended cut( some 18 minutes of additional scenes). Both versions present an audio commentary by Scott and Zaillian which is very informative. Scott takes on the problems of filmmaking on such an extensive project while Zaillian talks about the writing.

The HD special features include the deleted scenes that were placed back into the extended version and a five minute featurette with the real Frank Lucas and Richie Roberts. The problem is that this is all that is included as extras. The standard definition disc have many more additional features that are not included in the more expensive HD package.
HARLEM + HEROIN + TWO FAMOUS STARS. Does it equal an Academy Award? (2008-11-28) Rating: 5/5
American Gangster (2-Disc Unrated Extended Edition)
GANGSTER MOVIES COME IN VIVID SPURTS, like machine - gun fire. In the early '30s, hard guys like James Cagney, Paul Muni and Edward G.Robinson paraded the sick dazzle of Prohibition - era thugs. Forty years later the Corleones ruled, but on the margins were the subgenera of African Americans gangster films: SUPERFLY, BLACK CAESAR and their bloody kin. Beneath the violent fantasies of these films was a historical fact: African American mobsters were seizing power from the Italians, who had run the underworld. AMERICAN GANGSTER, is the real - life microcosm of that story. Frank Lucas (DENZEL WASHINGTON) was a Harlem drug lord who, the Vietnam era, revolutionized the Heroin trade by importing the nasty white stuff directly from Southeast Asia, often in the caskets of U.S.soldiers. As Lucas amassed a $50 million fortune, investigator Richie Roberts (RUSSELL CROWE) pusued him. Their story was told in a magazine article that is the source for this film. Director RIDLEY SCOTT and scriptwriter, STEVEN ZAILLIAN (who last collaborated on HANNIBAL) aren't your standard shoot-em-up types, so they'll be painting Lucas as a prototype of white-collar criminals and, even more crucially, highlighting
the element of race in the heroin business. The Mafia, considered African Americans as its customers, not the rivals. Lucas and the more notorious NICKY BARNES(played by CUBA GOODING Jr.) changed all that. The movie surely has another motive. The three actors and Zaillian, are all Academy Award winners, as is producer, BRIAN GRAZER( for A BEAUTIFUL MIND ), and Scott helmed GLADIATOR to a BEST PICTURE statuette.