Box office In its opening weekend in the United States and Canada, it grossed an estimated $43.6 million, averaging $14,264 per theater, placing the film first in the weekend box office. It marked the biggest opening weekend out of any film in both Washington and Crowe's careers. In its second week, grosses declined by 44.8 percent to $24 million, being beaten out by
Bee Movie. In contrast by its third week, screenings for
American Gangster increased to 3,110 theaters as the film surpassed the $100 million mark.
American Gangster finished its box office run in North America with $130,164,645. It repeated the feat in its second week, grossing an estimated £1.82 million ($3.7 million) at the box office and beating out
Beowulf two consecutive times. The weekend of November 16–18 saw
American Gangster take $14.7 million from fourteen territories internationally. At the same time,
American Gangster expanded in the European market; it received $2.8 million from 366 theaters in Germany and $3.6 million from 366 screens in France during its opening weekend. Releases followed in Norway and Sweden the succeeding week, where it earned $392,608 and $465,238 from thirty-seven and fifty-nine theaters, respectively. The film was released in the United Arab Emirates during the film's sixth week and grossed a modest $281,922 at the box office during its first week in the emirate. Similarly, it earned $6.9 million in international markets during its sixth week, adding the total at the time to $40.9 million. By January 25, 2008,
American Gangster opened in thirty-seven markets, bringing international grosses to $93 million. In February, screenings for the film debuted in Mexico—with a modest $820,482 opening weekend—and Japan, where it opened at the box office with $2.3 million, landing in second place.
American Gangster grossed over $266.5 million worldwide at the box office, with international grosses making up 51 percent ($136.3 million). It ranked as the 19th highest-grossing film of 2007 both domestically and worldwide.
Critical response Review aggregate
Rotten Tomatoes reports that 81% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 218 reviews, with a rating average of 7.00/10, with the consensus being: "
American Gangster is a gritty and entertaining throwback to classic gangster films, with its lead performers firing on all cylinders." On
Metacritic, which assigns a
weighted mean score out of 100 to reviews from film critics, the film has a score of 76 based on 38 reviews. Audiences polled by
CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.
Roger Ebert of the
Chicago Sun-Times gave the film a perfect four-star rating and opined, "This is an engrossing story, told smoothly and well." Ebert also praised Crowe's performance, saying that his contribution to the storytelling was "enormous". Paul Byrnes of
The Sydney Morning Herald felt that
American Gangster was "one of the most intelligent gangster films in years" and expressed that the film offers "the spectacle of grand themes and two bigger-than-life characters played by two of the best actors in cinema." Concluding his review, Byrnes gave the film four out of four stars.
IGN's Jim "Stax" Vejvoda rated the film four out of five stars, praising the acting—particularly of the two protagonists, "both dynamic presences on-screen, with neither actor outweighing the other's importance to the story"—and declaring that despite being preceded by other gangster stories such as
Scarface and
The Sopranos,
American Gangster managed to justify its existence with "emphasis on the human and class elements of the story". Manohla Dargis of
The New York Times strongly commended the film, opining that "greatness hovers just outside
American Gangster." She continued: "It's a seductive package, crammed with all the on-screen and off-screen talent that big-studio money can buy, and filled with old soul and remixed funk that evoke the city back in the day, when heroin turned poor streets white and sometimes red." In comparison, some reviewers were more critical of
American Gangster. Jonathan Crocker of
Time Out London was polarized with the film, criticizing its aesthetics. In his review, he wrote, "Scott's meticulous aesthetics can't touch the urban texture and deep focus of
The French Connection,
The Godfather,
Serpico and
Prince of the City – all looming heavily in intertextual nods." In contrast, Crocker praised Washington's acting, writing, "He's immense: centering every scene with tractor-beam charisma, that dangerous, easy charm hovering between a luxury smile or blazing violence." In conclusion, Crocker gave the film three out of five stars. Similarly, Owen Gleiberman of
Entertainment Weekly gave the film a 'C−' grade, expressing that
American Gangster is "never dull, but it could have used more good old-fashioned melodramatic intrigue." Gleiberman found Washington's performance to have "a ghastly ingenuity".
Empires Ian Freer rated the film three stars out of five; he stated that it was "undeniably enjoyable" and praised the cast, but also noted that he felt that "very little in the movie feels fresh, re-treading scenes, riffs and imagery from the whole history of crime flicks" and that the film did not explore enough of Lucas' story and Scott's visual imagination.
Slant Magazine journalist Nick Schager harshly criticized the film, giving the film a one out of four stars rating. Schager remarked that the film was "dumb as a rock", and that it was "far too convinced of its import to be any fun." Giving
American Gangster a two out of five stars,
Peter Bradshaw of
The Guardian was disappointed with Washington's acting, asserting, "He doesn't seem to relax and enjoy himself in the role, or even inhabit it very satisfyingly." He resumed: "He never has the menace of his dirty cop in
Training Day, and we don't see anything like the transformation from street-hustler to leader in
Malcolm X. That shoulder-shimmying swagger is rarely seen, and the brand-classic robes of
American Gangster sit on him heavily."
Accuracy of the film Lucas admitted to several news outlets that only a small portion of the film was true, and that much of it was fabricated for dramatic effect. In addition,
Richie Roberts criticized the film for portraying him in a custody battle while in real life he never had a child. Roberts criticized the portrayal of Lucas, describing it as "almost noble". Former
DEA agents Jack Toal, Gregory Korniloff, and Louis Diaz filed a lawsuit against Universal saying that the events in the film were fictionalized and that the film
defamed them and hundreds of other agents. The lawsuit was eventually dismissed by US District Judge Colleen McMahon. While McMahon noted that the
intertitle that appears at the end of the film, stating that Lucas' collaboration led to the arrest of many corrupt DEA agents, was "wholly inaccurate", in that Lucas' cooperation did not lead to the convictions, and opined that "[i]t would behoove a major corporation like Universal (which is owned by a major news organization, NBC) not to put inaccurate statements at the end of popular films", she stated that the film failed to meet legal standards of defamation because it failed to "show a single person who is identifiable as a DEA agent". Many of Lucas' other claims, as presented in the film, have also been called into question, such as being the right-hand man of
Bumpy Johnson, rising above the power of the Mafia and
Nicky Barnes, and that he was the mastermind behind the
Golden Triangle heroin connection of the 1970s. Ron Chepesiuk, a biographer of Frank Lucas, deemed the story a myth.
Associated Press entertainment writer Frank Coyle noted that "this mess happened partly because journalists have been relying on secondary sources removed from the actual events."
Accolades American Gangster earned various awards and nominations, in categories ranging from recognition of the film itself to its screenplay and music, to the performances of
Ruby Dee and
Denzel Washington. Prior to the film's release, it was observed as a candidate for the
Academy Awards based on its style and the performances of its actors, including the possibility of an
Academy Award for Best Director for
Ridley Scott. The film was recognized as a candidate for best film by the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the
Broadcast Film Critics Association. In addition, the film was included on 54 reviewer lists of the ten best films of 2007, three of them at the top spot. Among the lists ranking
American Gangster as one of the best of the year were those of
The Miami Herald,
Rolling Stone and the
Associated Press. The novelisation, by
Max Allan Collins won a
Scribe Award for Best Adapted Novel in 2008. == See also ==