In the years that Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington) served as Harlem gangster Bumpy Johnson's right hand man, he learned from the best. When Bumpy passed away, it made sense that Frank would rise up and take his place even if a few rival Harlem hoods didn't see it that way. The key to Frank's rising success in the New York underworld of the early seventies was 'Blue Magic' - pure heroin that he had imported from Bangkok. He sold this dope, which was twice as strong as the competition's, at half the price and before you know it the man has so much money he's able to move his family from North Carolina into a massive mansion in New York City and take a beautiful woman named Eva (Lymari Nadal) for his wife.

At the same time, a New Jersey cop named Ritchie Roberts (Russell Crowe) and his partner (Ted Lavine) find a car full of mob money. Rather than keep it, which is what 70% of the cops on the force would have done at the time, they turn it in. While this doesn't do the pair any favors with their fellow officers, it does bring Ritchie to the attention of the Feds, who hire him on to work for the district attorney in hopes of corking the flow of drugs into the area. The deeper Ritchie's investigation goes, the closer he comes to Frank but while all of this is going on, corrupt cops, lead by Detective Trupo (Josh Brolin), are causing problems on both sides of the fence and both sides of the Hudson River.

American Gangster, Ridley Scott's take on the mob movie, is interesting in that despite all the supporting characters and little plot twists in its near three hour running time, it's essentially the story of two very similar men working opposite sides of the street. Roberts is as honest as a cap can be though his wife is in the process of divorcing him for being a philanderer. Lucas is a family man, very good to his mother and his brother, but if you cross him in a business transaction, he'll put a bullet in your head right in the middle of a busy street, witnesses be damned. Each man works very hard to get what they want, and it's these similarities that make the characters interesting. While Roberts is researching the intricacies of Frank's organization, Frank is researching how to keep his supply coming in at the right price and how to get it into the right hands. Their respective systems are a lot alike, as are their personalities, and Scott's film exploits these characteristics quite nicely.

Both Crowe and Washington are excellent in their performances. While both men have been known to go a little over the top in the past, here they're quite restrained and both are very believable in their parts. Throw in some excellent supporting and bit-part performances from Josh Brolin, Ted Levine, Cuba Gooding Jr., Armand Assante, and Clarence Williams III and you've got yourself a very well acted and well cast film. The costume and wardrobe all looks authentically early seventies and the location shooting certainly ensures that the backdrop for the drama looks right, with the natural grittiness of New York City coming through in pretty much every frame of the film. While more engrossing mob films have been made in the past, American Gangster holds its own. Sure it's a little long but the story is interesting enough and the character developed enough that it's never boring.

Notes about the extended cut: An additional eighteen minutes have been added to the extended cut of American Gangster which serve to flesh out the characters a little better and to help with the flow of the film. Nothing is seriously changed here, however, and the bit added to the ending of the film feels a little off.

Video:

American Gangster is presented in a nice 1080p VC-1 encoded 1.85.1 anamorphic widescreen transfer that does justice to the film's gritty style. Detail is excellent and there are no problems with softness or print damage despite a little bit of grain here and there. Color reproduction accurately depicts the 'seventies' look that they were obviously going for so don't expect the colors to leap off of the screen at you but even in that department the picture looks good. Skin tones are lifelike and very natural looking and black levels stay nice and strong. There are no problems with mpeg compression artifacts or edge enhancement and over all this is just a very solid looking transfer. Shadow detail could have been a little bit better but aside from that, there's nothing to complain about here.

For whatever reason, this HD DVD combo disc contains only the theatrical cut in high definition. The unrated, extended cut of the film is on the B side of the disc (the theatrical cut is also available in standard definition) and is presented in standard definition only. The added scenes in this cut of the film stand out a little bit and don't look quite as good as the content seen in the theatrical cut but aside from that this is a fine standard definition transfer (even if the extended cut should have been available in high definition).