Another Review

I like movies. But I don't care for light comedies, car chases, animation or any movie focusing on sports. I don't care for long movies or plays. In my opinion, if the movie is over an hour and a half, the director needs to get over himself.

I want strong dialogue and strong, realistic stories.

So last night I was looking forward to seeing "American Gangster." Despite the fact that it's 2 hours and 38 minutes long!!!

This movie, staring two academy award winning actors, Denzel Washington (bad guy) and Russell Crowe (good guy) has received excellent ratings.

Cuba Gooding, Jr. had a very small roll. My Boyfriend and I disagreed about the direction in which his career is heading.

Although it was extremely painful to watch, "American Gangster" did a good job of portraying the horrendous drug problems in this country during the time of the Viet Nam war - propelled by the corruption of police forces and the inability of our armed forces in keeping the traffic flow in check.

I did not find this movie entertaining.

But my main beef is the casting of Denzel Washington - and the subsequent way he was depicted. The public sees him as strong, moral, good and handsome.

Better casting would have been for he and Russel Crowe to trade rolls but that probably wouldn't have worked since it's the true story of an African American gangster.

In the first scene we see Densel setting somebody on fire. His character was responsible for the suffering and deaths of THOUSANDS of people.

Yet he remained attractive. And at the end even heroic. This did not make sense to me.

As we were leaving the theater I said to my Boyfriend, it must be about midnight. But it was only 8:30.