Review of "American Gangster"
sean | 06 November, 2007 15:10
The Age of Moral Ambiguity
Last night I had the pleasure of seeing Ridley Scott's "American Gangster", an action-packed crime drama. (Caution, spoilers ahead)
The action was well-paced and exciting, but I left the theater with a distinct sense of unease. The story starts out describing the situatuions of a low-level gangster and a "narcotics division" police officer; well-acted by Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe respectively.
By mid-film, Denzel's character Frank Lucas is one of the top heroin importing crime lords in the country, and Russell's honest cop is heading a then newly-formed and federally-funded narcotics enforcement squad. Throughout the film, Denzel's Lucas peddles heroin on an industrial scale, murders rivals, and enforces obedience with an iron fist. True, once he's achieved a level of financial success he brings his family to New York from North Carolina and employs his many brothers as lieutenants, even putting his poor aged mother up in a palatial estate. Ok, a thug with family values, we get it. But does this really redeem him socially?
The inevitable climax ensues when American forces pull out
of Vietnam in the mid 1970s, and Lucas' Indochinese Import/Export
business is threatened. Crowe doggedly pursues the crafty smuggler and eventually gets the collar. The real twist for me however is at the end.
Lucas plea bargains for a lighter sentence in exchange for
turning in as many corrupt cops as he can finger. According to the film, which is "based on actual events" a full 2/3rds of New York's Drug Enforcement Police forces are brought up on charges. My point of confusion/contention is this:what is the moral of story? Is this movie seeking to make some point, or is it pure entertainment? Am I supposed to sympathize with Lucas' character? In a lovely montage towards the end, after Lucas has opted to plea bargain, he is shown in grandfatherly reading glasses, wearing a sweater and laughing congenially with Crowe's character as they plot the downfall of so many crooked cops. (huh?) In a text-based epilogue, the movie states Crowe's character later quits law enforcement to become a criminal defense lawyer, and that his first client is Frank Lucas. Wait, now it's a buddy film? Lucas was originally sentenced to 70 years in prison. Due to his cooperation he served only 15 years, and was released in 1991. So this murderous wholesale heroin importer is back on the streets? Am I supposed to feel good that he turned in all the dirty cops? Am I supposed to believe he's some victim of circumstances and deep down just a really a nice guy with a strong (albeit misdirected) entrepreneurial drive? Sure this historic episode (depending on the veracity of the script) probably cleaned up the act of drug enforcement agencies nationwide, but what is the state of affairs today? It seems to me the drug war is still an endless cycle of corruption, cynicism and shattered innocence.
This movie left me deeply confused. I suppose it is an interesting story, but what on earth possessed a director the caliber of Ridley Scott to make this film I may never know. Most of the time with crime dramas I feel like the moral of the story is pretty straightforward, for instance like in the recent Martin Scorcese film "The Departed". Here is an honest to goodness tragedy. Pretty much everyone dies, and the point of it seems to say, live by the sword, die by the sword, and children beware, because in fact, a life of crime is really not glamorous. Maybe this was a movie about redemption, but again, I just can't tell.
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Free Land in Alaska!
cn | 16 March, 2007 17:26
Just like in the olden-days when the government gave away land to the homesteaders to encourage America to move west, a town in Alaska is giving away 26 lots of 1,3 acres each on a first-come, first-serve basis. What do you have to do to obtain one of the lots? Says CNN.com:
The 1.3-acre lots will be awarded to the first people who apply for them and submit $500 refundable deposits beginning at 9 a.m. Monday. Each winning applicant must build a house measuring at least 1,000 square feet within two years. Power and phone hookups are now available.
And what's Anderson, AK like?
...no gas station, no grocery store and no traffic lights, but it does have plenty of woodsy land
...
Among the other advantages of Anderson: no property taxes, state income taxes or sales tax, virtually no crime, and no traffic. There are magnificent summers with temperatures as high as 90 degrees and plenty of wide-open space.
But it sure is smack dab in the middle of nowhere. But check out the town's website here to see details of the land giveaway! I'm thinking I might just have to apply...
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Souped-Up Office!
ben | 31 December, 2006 14:01
So as a bit of a Merry Christmas to myself I've upgraded my office a bit over the past month, party for tax reasons (it's all deductible!) and partly because I get fewer and fewer things for Christmas that I actually find useful...I'm not complaining, but as I change, certain members of my family fail to notice and I fail to communicate to them clearly any particular changes.
For instance - I am a vegetarian (including no sea food), which I've mentioned to the family a few times...and I got a couple of pounds of smoked salmon for my birthday. Also, being 29 and in relatively good shape, I haven't grown much in about 9 or 10 years, yet I for some reason received a bunch of clothes in the size of Large...which I've never worn. All this I find more and more amusing as time goes on and I think it would be a bit boring to get everything I ask for and in my size for Christmas, so I'm thankful that the family gets somewhat forgetful. It's always a surprise. One close family member gets my sister perfume every year for Christmas and every year, on Christmas day when she opens the inevitable perfume, she reminds the person that she wears perfume perhaps twice a year...yet the perfume keeps coming!
Anyway, on to my office upgrades...I purchased a new Hanns-G HW191D Widescreen 19-inch LCD Flat Panel Monitor at the beginning of the month to replace the old big-ass Dell box monitor, which I would plug into my laptop at home that had to be shoved into the corner to fit in the office and I had to twist my body awkwardly to use it. It's quite nice.
I also replaced the corded mouse with a cordless mouse and keyboard by Belkin - not the nicest available but it does the job, though sometimes the keyboard can't quite keep up with my typing and both the keyboard and mouse buttons are somewhat loud.
Finally, and most recently, I purchased one of those kneeling chairs that's good for your back, similar to this one on amazon.com, but less expensive.
I never thought I would ever ever ever get one of these, but I was killing time at an office store with a friend waiting for them to bring a table out from the back and was trying out chairs. I tried this one out and, whamo! I was hooked. I've used it for a few hours on end without any real soreness or stiffness. I actually highly recommend it if you spend a lot of time at your desk.
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An Amazing List of Best Posts of the Year on Wired Mag Blog 27B Stroke 6
cn | 06 December, 2006 15:53
At 27B Stroke 6 (I have no idea what that means!), a blog at the Wired Magazine site, they ran a list of their best posts of the year and the posts touch on some very interesting and often disturbing issues of the past year.
The list includes the exposure, and continuing denial of, massive computer virus issues at the Department of Homeland Security, major flaws with the security of airline ticketing, and the warrentless wiretapping issue with a look at the problem from a very clear and data-oriented viewpoint.
Take a look a the list and links to corresponding articles here.
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