Cynical Cinema

“I smoke on the mic like smokin’ Joe Frazier, the hellraiser, raisin’ hell with my flavour”

Paramount Home Entertainment is releasing a BET production, WU: The Story Of the Wu-Tang Clan on November 18th. And the Wu-Tang Clan do, indeed, have a fascinating story. But this isn’t it. When I first got the DVD, the first thing I did was flip to the special features and watch the video for “Protect Ya Neck”, the very first Wu-Tang single, the song that launched their careers, and still a terrific video and song. It’s got a home-video feel to it, mostly because it is basically a home video, and that early-90s rap vibe that I still enjoy to this day. And it features nine powerful rappers throwing down some of the most innovative lyrics and verses with absolute ease. Magnificent. I love the Wu-Tang Clan.

Think about it - what kind of bizarre group was this in 1993, when they exploded out of Staten Island with Protect Ya Neck and then 36 Chambers, to this day one of the greatest rap albums ever created. The Appetite For Destruction of the hip-hop world, if you will. And I will. What kind of record rep would sign a group after hearing the 5-minute song “Protect Ya Neck”, with nine MCs rapping together without a chorus, on the subject of the kung-fu B-movies of the 60s and 70s, and referring to Staten Island as Shaolin? Well, we get to meet the DJ who first spun that record, the record label reps who signed the group, the people who were influential behind the scenes of the Wu-Tang, and…that’s about it. We meet them.

For a real Wu-Tang Fanatic, WU: The Story of the Wu-Tang Clan feels woefully incomplete. First of all, the documentary appears to end way too early, with almost no mention of The W or Iron Flag. (For those of you who are not rabid followers of the Wu-Tang, those are two later-career albums done by the group, The W featuring “Gravel Pit”, one of the all time great video songs, and Iron Flag featuring “Uzi (Pinky Ring)”, one of the all time great Wu-Tang songs.) The movie, really, ends with the death of Old Dirty Bastard. While this was a tragic event, and a watershed occasion in the history of hip-hop, this documentary could really have been released many years ago.

It appears as though there is a soundtrack available for this film as well (I just saw it on amazon.com) and the track listing ends with “Gravel Pit”. It starts with six songs from the 36 Chambers debut, and features nothing beyond the ‘Gravel Pit’ single. So why not release this in 2004? Or even 2000? Why wait until 2008?  And why not include a lot more information?

There is a bit of controversy over the shutout of American Gangster at the Oscars. It was not nominated for best picture, and both Russell Crowe and Denzel Washington were shut out of the nominations for best actor. I understand the snub of Crowe. (Frankly, he deserves it more for 3:10 to Yuma than he does for this movie.) But the only reason I can think of for snubbing Washington is that he is too tailor-made for this part. You forget that he is an actor, because you’re watching Denzel Washington. As though it were a reality show about his life. If Denzel killed people and ran a drug empire and married Miss Puerto Rico, this would be exactly what his life would look like. The one role he has played to which I could compare this one was in Training Day, and he won the Oscar for that one. And here, he is better. That really is the strength of American Gangster, the performances.

Not just Washington, but Russell Crowe is reliably terrific as the cop tracking him down, and the supporting cast is remarkably good. The RZA, of the Wu-Tang clan, appears here, and as soon as I saw him I thought “oh, no! A rapper in a major role means this movie will start to hit Seagal territory in parts”. But the RZA is good. So is Armand Assante, who I love, and Josh Brolin as a crooked cop. Cuba Gooding Jr. is in the film also, and I absolutely hate Cuba Gooding Jr. However, he has maybe five lines, total, and wasn’t around long enough to irritate me. I also really like the inclusion of Clarence Williams III as Ellsworth “Bumpy” Johnson. Johnson was a real-life legendary gangster figure in New York, and he was the subject of the under-rated 1997 movie “Hoodlum”, where he was played by Lawrence Fishburne in one of the best roles of his career.

In American Gangster, Bumpy dies near the beginning, and his right-hand-man, chauffeur and gopher, Frank Lucas, is left a little adrift. Frank is played by Denzel Washington, and he has few choices. Now that his mentor is gone, he can either leave town and go back to his family, or work for someone else, or take matters into his own hands. Of course, he chooses the third option and rises to power as the number one dealer, importer and gangster in New York. He manages to exist on the periphery, away from the other gangsters, the corrupt cops, and the good cops. One of those good cops is Russell Crowe, who has been blackballed by his police department for being a good cop. In a few scenes very reminiscent of Serpico, he is left hanging because the other cops in the department feel that if a cop won’t take money, then he of course would turn in cops who do. But of course, it isn’t black-and-white. Washington is not all bad, Crowe is not all good, which of course happens in any great movie. And a lot of bad ones.

What really sets American Gangster apart, aside from the fantastic actors doing fantastic acting, is the style. Ridley Scott has managed to make some of the most visually appealing movies in history. (Check out his early work, like The Duellists, or Alien). Sometimes that goes off the rails and the movie suffers for the stylish makeup - think Hannibal, or Black Hawk Down. But in American Gangster, Scott seems to treat the whole movie almost like a period piece. Of all his movies, this one feels the most like The Duellists, both in it’s theme and it’s style. It moves along at a crackling pace on the backs of Washington and Crowe, and although it runs more than two and a half hours, you never have a sense of the time passing. Tremendously engaging and fantastically done.