I saw the trailor - seem to be a good movie. Have you seen American Gangster? Do you think it beter or you think Jumper is beter?

Would be nice to know what the big critics think.

Mindfactory,

For you I will try and look it up ... but, remember, no promises.

Mindfactory,

As not promised:

American Gangster

The basis of the story was a 2000 New York Magazine article written by Mark Jacobson. Author Nicholas Pileggi who knew the real 'Frank Lucas' introduced him to Jacobson. The brought the attention of Brian Grazer who bought the rights on the spot after meeting the three of them with Richie Roberts in Los Angeles.

Superfly meets Serpico


Is it really possible to create a movie about a person who made millions of dollars by killing people and ruining the lives of thousands by flooding the streets with heroin and make him likable?

With “American Gangster,” Denzel Washington and director Ridley Scott prove that, yes, you actually can.

And that's no easy feat, especially when you consider that in the opening scene of “American Gangster” Washington, who plays real-life drug mogul Frank Lucas, douses a bloody and battered rival with gasoline, sets him on fire and puts him out of his misery with a barrage of bullets.

Washington has said on several occasions that he didn't want to glamorize Frank Lucas, but rather show the horrible effect he had on a lot of people's lives during the late 1960s and early '70s. Washington may have not wanted to glorify the Harlem drug dealer, but with his superb acting skills he has created one of the coolest gangsters since Tony Montana.

Frank pretty much flew under the radar when he was the right-hand man to Harlem kingpin Bumpy Johnson (Clarence Williams III), but when his boss suddenly passes away he refuses to let others erase the legacy of the man who taught him almost everything he knows.

In an attempt to take control of the inner-city drug trade, Frank travels to Southeast Asia to deal directly with the suppliers and get his hands on the highest quality of heroin. By cutting out the middleman, Frank is able to sell a product that's better than the competition at a lower price.

As Frank starts his rise to power, honest Jersey cop Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe) is struggling to regain the trust of his fellow officers. Most of the other cops in the department are just as corrupt as the thugs who walk the streets, and Richie raises eyebrows when he turns in close to $1 million in found drug money instead of keeping it all for himself.

Richie especially ruffles the feathers of Detective Trupo (Josh Brolin) of the New York Special Investigations Unit, who lets anyone sell drugs on the streets as long as they give him a hefty portion of the profits.

Although Richie must constantly look over his shoulder for cops who want to take him down, he knows he can't stand by and watch the people of Harlem throw their lives away. Richie believes someone is climbing the rungs above the known Mafia families and speculates that a black power has come out of nowhere to dominate the scene.

Franks usually stays low key, but he accidentally brings attention to himself during an Ali-Frazier fight when he wears an extravagant chinchilla coat and hat, which prompts Richie to suspect that he is the man behind everything. With his newly assembled group of undercover detectives, Richie vows to stop at nothing to bring Frank to justice.

With a running time of 157 minutes, “American Gangster” never seems like it runs too long thanks to Scott's (“Blade Runner,” “Black Hawk Down” and “Gladiator”) use of parallel cutting. The movie bounces back between the stories of Frank and Richie and the camera never stays on one of them for too long. The two Academy Award-winning actors get equal screen time but they don't actually lock horns until the last 15 minutes of the film, which really helps heighten the tension.

Another interesting aspect of “American Gangster” is the fact that the personal lives of Frank and Richie are the complete opposite of their professional lives and they live by a different moral code.

Frank may be a ruthless killer, but he is respected in the community and he takes care of his family, including his mother (Ruby Dee) and his wife (Lymari Nadal). Richie may follow the letter of the law, but the divorced father never has time for his son, probably because he is too busy sleeping around with different women.

Washington and Crowe will most likely get all of the accolades for “American Gangster,” and deservedly so, but the actor who pulls the biggest surprise performance is Brolin, who has come a long way since playing Mikey's older brother in “The Goonies.” The two leads may have each won Academy Awards for their acting, but Brolin's portrayal as a criminal with a badge will be hard to forget and he deserves just as much praise as Crowe and Washington.

The one downfall to “American Gangster” is that its material is not all that fresh, but even though it is similar to the likes of “Scarface,” “Superfly” and “Serpico,” it is so much fun that you won't even notice or care.

4 1/2 stars (out of 5)

Goofs for American Gangster (2007)

Factual errors: Early in the film, there is a shot of a street sign marking the corner of West 116th Street and 8th Avenue in Manhattan. A street sign bearing this intersection does not exist and would not have existed at the time. Starting at 110th Street/Central Park North, the avenue referred to as 8th Avenue from 12th Street to Columbus Circle (and as Central Park West for the length of the park) is (and was, at the time) signed Frederick Douglass Boulevard, so the sign should have read West 116th Street/Frederick Douglass Boulevard (and should have been yellow with black lettering).

* Revealing mistakes: Moses Jones (played by RZA of the Wu Tang Clan) sports a prominent Wu Tang Clan tattoo on his left upper arm, especially visible in the first briefing scene of the newly formed narcotics unit. Additionally, upon close examination, the tattoo features his name 'RZA' set inside the Wu Tang Clan logo.

* Anachronisms: Just after Frank hears the news of the imminent fall of Saigon on TV and goes to ring his contact, we see a modern car drive past the window.

* Anachronisms: The subway train shown going into the Manhattan Valley tunnel was built in 1986.

* Errors in geography: The scene where Richie and his partner find money in the trunk of a car has a caption that says "New Jersey". The view in the beginning of the scene is of the Williamsburg Bridge, which connects Williamsburg, Brooklyn, to the Lower East Side in Manhattan.

* Anachronisms: In some scenes we can see Citicorp Center. This building was not present in the early 1970s.

* Revealing mistakes: In some scenes when snow is falling, the broad-leaf trees in the background have green (summer) leaves.

* Anachronisms: In the scene set in 1968 where Frank prepares to call his cousin in Bangkok for the first time, an Internet URL is clearly seen on a billboard across the street.

* Anachronisms: Frank drives past a sign saying I-395, when in fact, the road in Washington, D.C. was not named so until the late seventies.

* Anachronisms: The law books Richie Roberts is studying for class are festooned with 3M Post-it® notes: they weren't invented until 1977, and were available nationally in 1980.

* Continuity: When detective Richie is chasing the guy in the apartment complex he pumps his shot gun and points it in the face of a woman. After realizing this mistake he resumes his pursuit and pumps the shotgun yet again in the face of the man on the ground without firing a round.

* Errors in geography: A distant mountain range is visible in a location identified as Fort Bragg, NC; no such mountains exist around Pope Air Force Base which serves Ft. Bragg.

* Anachronisms: On the payphone the label "A NYNEX Company" is visible; NYNEX didn't exist until after the AT&T breakup in 1984.

* Anachronisms: When Javier jumps from the ambulance, a postal service truck with the current logo is visible; this logo wasn't used until the 1990s.

* Anachronisms: Frank Lucas uses a small electronic adding machine with digital numbers. Those didn't come on the market till the mid 70's at the earliest.

* Anachronisms: When speaking with his nephew the baseball player in a scene set in 1972, Frank confronts him because the nephew missed a meeting he set up with the New York Yankees and Billy Martin. However, Martin did not manage the Yankees until 1975; he was managing the Detroit Tigers from 1971 to 1973.

* Continuity: In the movie they said Stevie is a southpaw, but you can see that when he throws the ball in the backyard of Frank's house, he is clearly right handed.

* Anachronisms: Early in the film, about 1970, we see the Staten Island Ferry passing the Statue of Liberty holding a gilded torch. The statue's internally lit torch wasn't replaced with the gilded one until 1986.

* Errors in geography: When Ritchie chases the car over the George Washington Bridge, the film claims that Ritchie is coming from New Jersey to Manhattan, where he doesn't have jurisdiction. In fact, he begins to tail the suspect on the Manhattan side of the George Washington Bridge going into New Jersey, then winds back up in New York.

* Anachronisms: There is a scene of Frank Lucas watching Nicky Barnes passing out copies of the NY Times magazine where he was the cover story. The issue with Barnes on the cover was not published until 1977, Lucas was arrested and convicted before 1977.

* Factual errors: When Frank first calls his cousin in Bangkok, he gives the operator the country code for Thailand as 376. Later, as the war is ending, he gives the operator the country code as 367. (Thailand's actual calling code is 66).

* Anachronisms: In one of the scenes at Fort Bragg/Pope AFB, you can clearly see a modern-day C-17 Globemaster III in the background. These planes weren't added to the Air Forces inventory until 1993.

* Factual errors: In the movie, Frank Lucas was said to have been incarcerated from 1976 to 1991 continuously. In real life, Lucas was in fact paroled in 1981. He remained free for three years until he was arrested and convicted of parole violations and drug offenses in 1984 and was sent back to prison until he was released in 1991.

* Continuity: In the first courtroom scene, when Richie is speaking with his attorney, the camera angle alternates between a wide shot of both and one of Richie from behind his attorney. In the wide shot, his arm is straight across the bench behind her, while in the shot from her back, his arm is hanging behind the bench. This alternation between shots occurs many times.

* Continuity: In the scene where Frank Lucas confronts 'Tango' outside the shop, he pulls out a chrome .45 Colt automatic, then the weapon changes to a chrome Browning Hi-Power in the subsequent scene.

* Anachronisms: Night time shots clearly show streets lit with high pressure sodium lamps that give a warm red/orange glow. These were not introduced until the mid 1980's.

* Anachronisms: Subway trains: During the period of the film's setting, acceptable subway trains would have been anything from R40 and before. The popular subway cars would have been any of the BMT standard, R1/9, R10-R33 cars. Even though cars of a similar design to the 1986 one shown would have been in existence, they would have been very new and very rare.

* Anachronisms: Richie receives a letter sometime around 1970 saying that he has been admitted to the New Jersey bar. The letter refers to his passing the Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination. In 1975, California became the first state to introduce a Professional Responsibility Examination. The Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination, based on California's test, wasn't introduced until 1980.

* Continuity: During the chase of the Bronco after the $20,000 drug purchase inner-vehicle shots of Roberts show a Torino name plate on the dash board although exterior shots of the chase show them in a Cadilac.

* Anachronisms: Cars with NJ license plates featured the present-day bright yellow and white plates, which were not introduced until the early 1990s. In the early 1970s, NJ used off-white license plates.

* Continuity: When Det. Roberts moves Frank Lucas' picture to the top of the board, Dominic Cattano's picture next to it goes from facing forward to facing sideways and back to facing forward in different shots.

* Anachronisms: Many of the movie's Harlem street scenes feature current-day spray-painted graffiti tags and even some much larger "pieces" that would not have existed in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This appears to be a common problem for movie producers filming period pieces at the current time, due to the proliferation of graffiti tags in the urban landscape.

* Anachronisms: When Frank arrives in Bangkok, there's a scene where a blue Vespa PK (or PX) appears in the road crowd. Unfortunately those models didn't came up in to the market before late-70s or early-80s.

* Anachronisms: In the scene set at Smalls, the camera looks up at the Funk band singer who appears on stage after Joe Louis. On the ceiling is a Martin Atomic 3000 strobe with a DMX cable connected. DMX was not created until 1986, and the Atomic was not introduced by Martin until 2001.

* Anachronisms: In a scene set around Harlem in 1968, Bumpy Johnson laments having a McDonald's fast food restaurant on every street corner. However, the first McDonald's in New York City wasn't opened until the early 1970s -- in Harlem.

* Anachronisms: Banknote counter. In a scene we can see a bill counter with a numeric green LED display. Computerized bill counters were not introduced to the market before 1981.

* Anachronisms: Street signs shown in the movie are green with white lettering. Street signs in the 70's were actually yellow with black lettering.

* Continuity: When Detective Richie commandeers the cab and knocks the cab driver out, the knocked out driver disappears and reappears in scenes following the Ford Bronco through the turns on passenger side of cab.

* Anachronisms: The C-130 pictured carrying the first drug shipment (in the late 1960s) is a C-130H3, a type that was not produced until 1992.

* Anachronisms: In a scene in the winter of 1970-1, as the task force is tracking a sale of "Blue Magic" at night, the suspect is scene stepping out of a 1974 BMW 2002.

* Continuity: When Det. Roberts is lifting weights, discs attached to the olympic bar vary from shot to shot.

* Continuity: When the federal agents are leaving the office, after warning Richie he has a contract out for him, one agent puts his hat on and is seen putting it on again after a cutaway shot back to Richie.

* Anachronisms: In the scene where the dirty cops steal money from the drug dealer, a newer white service van can be seen in the background. This van is a 1990's model.

* Factual errors: The C-130 in the movie is actually a C-130A; check the pylon tanks and the 3-bladed props. Also, at that time period (Vietnam), C-130's were painted in a camouflage pattern. The gray overall paint scheme wasn't introduced until the late 1980's or early 1990's.

* Factual errors: Richie Roberts drives a rear-engined Volkswagen 1600 Variant. Richie opens the front trunk without pulling the trunk opener located in glove compartment.

* Factual errors: Early in the film, there is a shot of a street sign marking the corner of West 116th Street and 8th Avenue in Manhattan. A street sign bearing this intersection does not exist and would not have existed at the time. Starting at 110th Street/Central Park North, the avenue referred to as 8th Avenue from 12th Street to Columbus Circle (and as Central Park West for the length of the park) is (and was, at the time) signed Frederick Douglass Boulevard, so the sign should have read West 116th Street/Frederick Douglass Boulevard (and should have been yellow with black lettering).

* Anachronisms: During the family gathering in North Carolina, one of Frank Lucas' cousins refers to Stevie as throwing as hard as Bob Gibson and being able to throw "95 MPH." This was the era before baseball pitches were timed with radar guns and no one would have been able to tell with that amount of certainty how hard anyone threw a baseball.

* Anachronisms: During the scene where Richie is walking with his wife and son, the park is overflow by a 747, which would not have been possible for at least another year since they didn't start commercially flying until 1970.

* Crew or equipment visible: Ridley Scott's reflection is visible on a television set during the scene where Detective Trupo is searching the Lucas residence. There's a brief glimpse of Scott while the television is showing the caskets of deceased American GIs, right before cutting away to Russell Crowe in the cargo hold of a C-130 examining caskets.

* Continuity: When Frank is being released from prison, a woman with a purse is seen walking by from the left hand side of the screen. She appears at the same time as a man wearing an over sized t-shirt appears on the right hand side of the screen. The action cuts to a close up of Frank's face, then back to the street, where the same pair is seen walking by again.

* Revealing mistakes: At the end of the film, when Frank Lucas is released from prison and is standing on the sidewalk in front of the prison, an 'extra' walks from the right of the screen to the left and passes. In the next shot the same man is shown passing the same way.