American Gangster

The gangster story, like the Western, is a quintessentially American genre. And, in many ways, it is the opposite of the Western. The Western is about the taming of the frontier and the making of a nation. It values individual initiative through hard work and playing by the rules, along with material wealth and the spirit that comes from community. The gangster story bemoans the corruption of the American Dream. It shows individual initiative through illegal means, a corrupt, paranoid community and a success that is defined only through wealth.

The gangster genre is really a form of crime story, and when you write one you need to be very aware of this larger context and deeper theme. It is all about how an individual succeeds in American society. Knowing this allows you to tell a larger tale. And it prevents the audience from distancing themselves from your story by saying, "Oh, that's just a bunch of foreigners killing each other in some pocket on American soil."

Writer Steve Zaillian knows this larger context, which is why he can justifiably call this story of a black drug lord American Gangster. True to the form, he uses the story structure of the rise and fall of a king. Frank Lucas is the American businessman gone bad, and the fact that he is black is relevant only in that he represents the latest ethnic group in America to take this dark path to success.

But Zaillian isn't content to simply twist the gangster form by using a black main character. He tries to expand the scope of his story by using the larger crime genre. This is a broad category of stories - with gangster as one of the sub-genres - that focuses on the battle between cop and criminal. Ironically, Zaillian's choice only serves to diminish the scope and power of the film.

Crime stories derive much of their pleasure from two main elements: the plot machinations between the cop and the criminal and the blending of moralities by which the cop and the criminal live their lives. The first element is almost non-existent in this story. Frank's rise to power is unique only in his use of US Army personnel to bring his heroin from Southeast Asia. Cop Richie Roberts uses techniques that have been standard on TV crime shows for years.

This weakness in plot puts a serious dent in the dramatic power of the film, because it also means there is not enough mano-a-mano. There's none of the pleasure of Heat or The French Connection here. Frank and Richie, played by two powerhouse actors, have essentially one confrontation in the entire film. It's a good one, but it only highlights how much direct confrontation is missing in the rest of the movie.

The writer's choice of having two central but separate characters takes an even greater toll on the other key element of the crime story, the moral blend. We normally think of cop and criminal at two opposite extremes of the moral spectrum. A good crime story will use the battle between these two characters to show that the moral difference between them is much more ambiguous.

Zaillian shows the moral contradictions within each of these characters individually. One of the reasons the classic gangster story is fascinating is that the gangster holds two wildly different moralities within his own head. On the one hand, Frank believes in family, integrity, and professionalism. He also believes in selling dope and killing people who get in his way. The gangster's ability to compartmentalize these impossibly different ways of living is one of the great examples of the human mind's almost infinite ability to rationalize.

Cop Richie is pretty good at compartmentalizing his morality as well. He turns in a million dollars of corrupt money and goes after dirty cops, but he's also a bad husband and father. An ongoing dramatic confrontation between these two men could have produced a deeper look at what is truly moral and immoral in American society. But it never happens.

Instead, the most interesting aspects of these characters and their real moral contrast come at the end of the film, in written epilogue. Richie, the incorruptible cop who brings down kingpin Frank and three fourths of the cops in the narcotics division, switches from prosecutor to defense attorney, and his first client is Frank. He succeeds in getting Frank only fifteen years in prison. But we've already seen that Frank has not only destroyed hundreds of lives through his drug running, he is a cold-blooded killer.

When I read that my eyes popped out of my head. And I wondered, Where's that movie? This script just started getting interesting on the last page.

Gladiator

Gladiator is high-concept Hollywood at its best. Like Jurassic Park, it starts with the premise of the championship fight. What is more dramatic and fun for an audience than a heavyweight fight? The question is: who will be the fighters? Michael Crichton figured he'd put the two champions of evolution - humans and dinosaurs - in the ring at the same time and see who's best. David Franzoni's idea was to take a great Roman general and warrior and put him in the ring against Rome's best gladiators.

Franzoni then strings together a series of classic Saturday matinee story techniques to make the high concept work. The film begins with a terrific battle scene whose real purpose is to show the audience what a great soldier Maximus is. He fights for the glory of Rome and an old emperor, played by Richard Harris, who reminds us of Camelot.

Having set up the moral and physical greatness of Maximus, Franzoni introduces the main opponent, Commodus, the emperor's son. This is a key technique because it expands and extends the high concept beyond the hero fighting in the ring. It is what takes the story from simply an action film to an epic. Now the future of the entire empire rides on our hero.

Intercut with the opening is an arcadian vision of Maximus' home, where he longs to return when his fighting days are over. That sets up The Outlaw Josey Wales trick where Maximus' wife and child are murdered and his arcadian home destroyed. The mighty man has fallen to the bottom and must begin his climb back to the top where he will gain his revenge against his hated foe, Commodus, the emperor.

This gives us the clean desire line, and Franzoni can then hang on that line all the old matinee tricks. I actually laughed out loud while I was watching this movie as one classic story technique after another was pulled out of the storytellers' war chest out to do its duty. There's the tiny village in the boondocks of the Roman Empire that just happens to have its own mini-colosseum. From Seven Samurai we get the calm Maximus catching a nap before his first gladiator match. Then it's Maximus cutting seven opposing gladiators to pieces in quick succession.

Each new fight is set up to show that Maximus is an even greater warrior than we had thought before. With his fellow gladiators from the boondocks - another borrow from Seven Samurai - Maximus uses his army experience to turn the tables on the hometown gladiators who are supposed to massacre them. Next is Maximus' fight against the undefeated giant gladiator and the tigers.

Intercut with these fight scenes are intrigues surrounding the emperor, his lovely sister, and the senator, played by I Claudius himself, Derek Jacobi, who wants to return Rome to a republic. The important thing to realize is that this material is the super-structure the writer has built to increase the stakes of the fights and to give the audience breathing room before the next bout starts.

This kind of story structure - esentially a tournament - often has a tough time figuring out how to end the story. This film is no exception. The hero's final battle has to be with his main opponent, who is the emperor. But the emperor's not much of a fighter. Maximus, by contrast, has already proven to us that he is the best fighter in Rome. So the writer is reduced to a ridiculous finale where the emperor fights as a gladiator with a mortally-wounded Maximus. But Franzoni gets away with it because he also pulls out the old action technique of the noble death.

In theme and story technique, this film is extremely old-fashioned. Like Last of the Mohicans a few years back, Gladiator uses 1930s storytelling with 2000 film technology. The result is one of the biggest blockbusters of all time.