Capone Doubles Up On Ridley Scott! AMERICAN GANGSTER And BLADE RUNNER: THE FINAL CUT!

Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here. What a great opportunity for a double-header review. Ridley Scott is, in my opinion, in his prime as a filmmaker right now, better with age than ever before. AMERICAN GANGSTER is a great big goddamn movie, and good for him. And as for BLADE RUNNER, I’ve already had my say recently on that film... I’m more impressed now than ever, and not by sound and picture quality, but by the virtues of truly ageless visionary filmmaking. Here’s Capone, with what I’m sure is a great read:

Hey everyone. Capone in Chicago here. It's a great thing and lucky coincidence that there are two Ridley Scott films opening this weekend in some city (including Chicago). One, made 25 years ago, is BLADE RUNNER: THE FINAL CUT, made in a time in Scott's career where he was still fresh from making commercials and was often accused of putting style over substance in his work. That groundbreaking sci-fi work was not a commercial success when it was first released, but seeing it again recently on the big screen (projected digitally no less, although the print showing at the in many theaters beginning today will be a new 35mm print) reminded me how much I miss filmmakers who do put so much thought and attention into the look of their film. There isn't a frame of that film that can't be frozen, framed and put on a wall as a legitimate work of art. Although Harrison Ford had certainly acted in films prior to BLADE RUNNER, when I look back at his career, this film acts as his first great acting achievement. There's an anger bubbling up underneath Rick Deckard's stoic exterior that makes him perhaps the most dangerous of all the characters, replicant or not. Will he kill Rachel? It seems like a silly question today, but when I first saw the movie, I couldn't get it out of my head. Seeing it again recently, I'm reminded of the poetry of the dialog, especially with lines spoken by Rutger Hauer's Roy. I found him a much more sympathetic character this time around than I ever have before. Scott is never definitive about whether we are supposed to view the replicants as "evil," and in this final cut, I think his opinion on the subject is quite clear. They are cruel because they have been treated like slaves and objects for their entire existence. The implications in today's world, where many people tell us that torturing suspected terrorists is turning them into terrorists, seem clear. I've always loved BLADE RUNNER, but I can't remember a time when I've loved it quite this much. At various times in my life, I have thought Daryl Hannah or Rutger Hauer or Edward James Olmos give the most bizarre performance of the film, but I now realize the oddball award is thoughtfully earned by Sean Young, who goes from robot-like to weepy deb to lustful sex slave in a matter of just a few scenes. I'm not sure if she knew she was doing it at the time, but she's fantastic here. As excited as I am to receive the upcoming BLADE RUNNER deluxe box set this December (if only for the three-and-a-half-hour making of documentary DANGEROUS DAYS and the original work print that leaked out years ago), this is a film that must be seen in the theater. Even if you've seen it on the big screen before, trust me when I say you haven't seen it like this. Don't fixate on the changes; they are small and hardly noticeable in most cases. Focus on the visuals, the lighting, the flawless score and, above all, focus on the pollution-choked city, the over population, the constant rain, the towers of fire in the sky and the calls of all well-bodied humans to move "off world" because this world won't sustain life for much longer. The film has become more timeless over the years, and that is the mark of any great movie. The reason I continue to like just about everything Ridley Scott puts out is that the older he's gotten, the more he's focused on more complicated and layered stories (with the exception of last year's A GOOD YEAR, which I'm pretty sure he made while he was sleeping). AMERICAN GANGSTER is two stories that don't truly intersect until the last 20 or so minutes of the movie. One of the tales is fairly straight forward: Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington) is Harlem's master criminal and drug lord who has come up with a full-proof means to bring hard drugs into the country and do so without a middle man, a means that makes him very rich very fast. He gives back a great deal to the community he's essentially helping to destroy, and he's brought in most of his family from the South to come help him run things. Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe) is a detective with aspirations of being a lawyer, who can't be trusted by other cops because he's too honest. In an early scene, he confiscates $1 million from a drug bust and turns it all in as evidence and this is looked upon as a bad thing by the rest of the NYPD. Roberts is put in charge of a major drug task force that only targets suppliers and kingpins and he soon begins to realize that the Italian mob isn't controlling the bulk of the drugs coming into the city. He doesn't even know who Lucas is until well into his investigation, and the idea that a black man is in a position of power over the Mafia is inconceivable to him or anyone else. As much as I enjoyed watching all the performances in AMERICAN GANGSTER, I have to confess I enjoyed Roberts' storyline a little bit more, only because I've seen stories like that of Lucas before on screen. He was a man who rose up from being a driver and came up through the ranks, quietly waiting for his chance to step up and into the king's throne. Roberts was going through a messy child custody battle with his ex-wife (Carla Gugino) and studying for the bar and facing the sideways glances of his fellow cops. Lucas went around and shot people who disrespected him. Although this is clearly Lucas' story, director Scott wisely gives what probably amounts to equal screen time to Roberts' chaotic life. The cast for this film is filled with great performances in every size role. Putting in appearances here are Chiwetel Ejifor as Lucas' brother Huey, Ted Levine, John Hawkes, RZA, T.I., Ruby Dee, Roger Bart, Cuba Gooding Jr., Joe Morton, Armand Assante and rapper Common. But I think my favorite supported part in this film goes to the man of the year Josh Brolin as the most corrupt cop in a city full of them. And his is one of the few characters who seems equally threatening to both sides of this movie. He slithers between Lucas and Roberts like a well-oiled lizard, and we somehow know that he will be dealt with in good time. One would almost guess that Scott studied many of the great crime dramas of the 1970s before launching into AMERICAN GANGSTER. This seems like a film Sidney Lumet might have tackled in his heyday, and it's more than just the clothes, cars and music. Scott does a superb job showing us the era. The Vietnam War was still going on (in fact, Lucas' means of getting drugs into the U.S. depended on the war going on as long as possible), and New York City was getting out of control on both sides of the law. Scott brings all of these elements and all of these actors together masterfully. This is a true modern epic, an American story in so many ways that almost has to be told by an outsider who sees the bigger picture and the long-standing ramifications. The closing credits song, Public Enemy's "Can't Truss It," rings loud and clear after a movie that concerns itself with issues of deception, paranoia and double crossing. Oh, this is a fine film. Capone