Review Time (x3)

John and I saw American Gangster this weekend, and I have to say, I really don’t think it lived up to the hype. It wasn’t a bad movie. Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe were both great, in fact, but I felt like it never quite paid off. I guess I could see the potential in the story and in the performances, but it didn’t come together for me. A movie that is two and a half hours long shouldn’t feel like it has gaps in the story for one thing. The reviewer in the Washington Post said that the movie felt like it was 40 minutes long to him. Not me. I was practically falling asleep at the very end. I realize it was a true story, so they couldn’t take too many liberties with the facts, but it seems to me that there was a natural tension between the two stories they were telling – Denzel’s character’s rise to heroin kingpin in Harlem paralleling Russell’s cop character’s journey to become the head of a drug unit and eventually a prosecutor – that should have put more suspense in the story. All of the elements of a great story were there. It should have been a great movie, but I was disappointed.

If you’re looking for a really good gangster movie, I found Eastern Promises much more satisfying. It hasn’t gotten nearly the same attention or ad campaign as American Gangster, but I thought it was an excellent movie. It a narrowly focused story about the Russian Mafia set in London. Viggo Mortensen is terrific as Nikolai, a Russian gangster who turns out to not be all that bad after all. Naomi Watts plays a midwife trying to figure out what happened to the Russian teenager who turned up at her hospital and died while giving birth, and who suddenly finds herself in way over her head. Now, this was a movie where you really got a feel for the characters and what drove them. Even though it probably had as much violence as American Gangster, it felt like a quieter, more introspective movie. John and I both really enjoyed it.

I also finally finished reading William Gibson’s Spook Country, which I’ve been picking up and putting down for a couple of weeks now. I kept getting distracted, which is in no way a reflection on the quality of the book. I’ve just been ridiculously busy. It’s funny, because when I’m not reading William Gibson, I always forget just how much I enjoy his writing. And then I pick up one of his books, and I’m reminded that I don’t just like his work. I really, really like it. He’s got such a spare, yet incredibly descriptive style. You feel like you know his characters and can see the world they inhabit even though he doesn’t have any extraneous words floating around in his books. Spook Country is, much like most of his stories, kind of hard to explain. There’s an ex-lead singer of a band with a cult following trying to build a career as a journalist. There’s an illegal Cuban immigrant clan with ties to Russia and to the CIA. There’s a former intelligence officer playing his own games in the post 9-11 era, and there’s a current spy type using a junkie to help him track what the Cubans are up to with the former intelligence officer. Oh, and a very rich magazine publisher/ad man/cultural trend developer guy. Each thread of the story starts out separately, but they all converge in the end, with a payoff that was, at least for me, completely unexpected. I think I even liked it better than his last book, Pattern Recognition, and I really liked Pattern Recognition.

So to recap, American Gangster = good, but not as wonderful as everyone says, Eastern Promises = excellent and should be getting more attention than it is, and Spook Country = one of my favorite books I’ve read this year. And I read a lot, so that’s saying something.

Now, I’m looking for something new to read. I’ve got a stack of books under the coffee table, but I’m also always interested in other people’s suggestions. What have you read lately that you liked? Got any movies you want to review? Have at it in the comments.