Assante, Armand

American Gangster (2-Disc Unrated Extended Edition)

Academy Award® winners Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe team with director Ridley Scott (Gladiator) for an epic story as powerful as it is true. Armed with ruthless street-wise tactics and a strict sense of honor crime boss Frank Lucas (Washington) rules Harlem's chaotic drug underworld. When outcast cop Richie Roberts (Crowe) sets out to bring down Lucas's multi-million dollar empire it plunges both men into a legendary confrontation. American Gangster is "a brutal and brilliant film" (Pete Hammond Maxim.System Requirements:Running Time: 174 minutes Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA/CRIME & CRIMINALS Rating: NR UPC: 025193228024 Manufacturer No: 61032280

Ridley Scott puts on his "sweeping saga" gameface again, this time not for the sci-fi vistas of Blade Runner or the ancient world of Gladiator but for an urban epic. American Gangster gives the story of Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington), a real-life Harlem crime lord who built an empire on Southeast Asian heroin in the 1970s. Running parallel to Lucas's somewhat standard story is the investigation led by a persistent New Jersey cop, Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe). Roberts is a more interesting character than Lucas--too honest for his own good, unlucky in his personal life--and this kind of character, easily patronized by others, fits Crowe like a polyester shirt. Scott's tendency to hit his points square on the noggin is much in evidence here, including the typecasting of the supporting roles and the predictable Serpico atmosphere of the whole thing. (And speaking of supporting actors, the film needs more Chiwetel Ejiofor, whose role as a Lucas sidekick feels cut down.) It succeeds as a kind of chewy entertainment, fueled by the presence of two big stars working their muscles. Both Washington and Crowe look pretty brawny here. --Robert Horton

Beyond American Gangster on DVD

Great Crime and Gangster Films

More from Denzel Washington

More from Russell Crowe

Stills from American Gangster (Click for larger image)

Judge Dredd

In a future world where Judges hold the authority of police and the legal system, a former judge plots an overthrow of the government and battles against Dredd (Stallone) in his efforts.
Genre: Feature Film-Action/Adventure
Rating: R
Release Date: 3-SEP-2002
Media Type: DVD

Judge Dredd is one of those movies that doesn't have a brain of its own, so it can only rip off a lot of ingredients from other, better movies. It's a mishmash of Blade Runner, Total Recall, and The Road Warrior, with a dash of Star Wars tossed in for good measure. As if that weren't enough, it's got Sylvester Stallone, who seems to be the only one in the movie who's in on the game and knows it's all a sci-fi scam. Like The Fifth Element a few years later, Judge Dredd depicts a futuristic megalopolis packed with crowded vertical overgrowth and rampant commerce, where anarchy reigns supreme. Violent "block wars" are fought by lawless citizens with machine guns, and Judge Dredd (Stallone) is one of the city's heavily armed policemen, given free rein to judge and execute the perpetrators of violence. But Dredd himself is subjected to judgment and swift justice when his own gun is identified in the murder of a prominent TV reporter, forcing him to do whatever he can to clear his name. Diane Lane plays his partner in crime-fighting and romance, and Rob Schneider provides juvenile comic relief as Dredd's streetwise sidekick. Impressive special effects are on vivid display, and the movie's fun for what it's worth. Lower your expectations and you just might enjoy it. --Jeff Shannon

Striptease

This horrible misfire from the usually reliable writer-director Andrew Bergman (The Freshman) has nothing funny, provocative, timely, or interesting to say (despite being based on a novel by Carl Hiaasen) once Demi Moore gets her clothes off. Moore plays a single, unemployed mom caught up in a custody battle who elects to make some money by stripping at a club. The character's troubles don't end there, however: Her ex-husband is posing a threat, and a perverted congressman (Burt Reynolds) is looking for more than a lap dance. Bergman's great wit is nowhere in sight, and the film primarily becomes another opportunity for Moore to function like a special effect. The unrated video version of the film includes two minutes of footage not seen in the theatrical release. --Tom Keogh

To take on the system she first must take it off. Demi Moore is a single mom who turns to stripping to acquire the money she needs for a custody suit involving her child. Year: 1996 Director: Andrew Bergman Starring: Demi Moore Burt Reynolds Armand Assante Ving Rhames Special Features: Scene access Video Format: A: Standard; B: WidescreenSound: English French: Dolby Surround 2.0; Subtitles: English French Region Coding: 1 (U.S. and Canada)Running Time: 118 min.System Requirements:Starring: Demi Moore Burt Reynolds Armand Assante Ving Rhames Robert Patrick Paul Guilfoyle. Directed By: Andrew Bergman Running Time: 117 Mins. Color This film is presented in both "Widescreen" and "Standard" formats. Copyright 1999 Warner Home VideoFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating:  UPC: 053939256925

The Road to El Dorado

In its third foray into animated features, DreamWorks came up with something unfortunate: the routine animated picture. Plagued with production problems (it was originally conceived as a mold-breaking PG-13 adventure), the likable film is a Hope/Crosby-style road picture about two scalawags who stumble upon the Latin American paradise of El Dorado, the mythical city with riches of gold. Kenneth Branagh and Kevin Kline are quite fun as Miguel and Tuilo, two Spanish con artists who are shipwrecked in the New World with a scene-stealing horse. The pair follow a map to the secret city where their loyalty will be tested: do they return home rich men or continue to live in this paradise? Of course there are some obstacles: a high priest (Armand Assante) is locked in a power struggle with the benevolent chief (Edward James Olmos) and the perfunctory girlfriend (Rosie Perez) puts the two friends at odds. Like too many of the animated features of its time, The Road to El Dorado impresses only on a visual level (it's drenched in gorgeous greens and golds). The story and Elton John's songs are quite forgettable; only Branagh and Kline's playful banter keeps the film alive. The PG rating is for some bare backsides and a suggestion of off-screen sex that should soar right over the little ones' heads. Slick and light, it's a fine 83-minute entertainment for ages 5 and up, including the nondiscriminating adult. --Doug Thomas

On the Beach

Private Benjamin (Full Screen Edition)

A pampered socialite (Goldie Hawn) is so distraught after the wedding-night death of her husband (Albert Brooks) that she up and joins the Army. She whines, she pouts, she brings the corps down, until, of course, she gets with it. Eileen Brennan received a Best Supporting Actress nomination for her role as the butch Captain Doreen Lewis, Benjamin's nemesis. Funny and winning, the film takes an odd turn when Benjamin is assigned to the international theater and gets involved with a dour Frenchman (Armand Assante). Of course, it's all part of Benjamin's growth as a person, and the part confirmed that Hawn had gone from a go-go girl to a "you go" girl. --Keith Simanton

Goldie Hawn wins the Comedy Medal of Honor in this box-office smash about a pampered upper-middle class princess who joins "today's Army." Eileen Brennen and Armand Assante co-star. Year: 1980 Director: Howard Zieff Starring: Goldie Hawn Eileen Brennen Armand AssanteRunning Time: 110 min.System Requirements:Interactive Menus Production Notes Scene Access Dolby Digital Theatrical Trailer Languages: English & French Subtitles: English French & Spanish Standard version has been modified from its original version; it has been formatted to fit your screen. Interactive Menus Production Notes Theatrical Trailer Video Format: Standard 1.33:1 (4.3) English: Dolby Digital Stereo French: Dolby Digital Mono Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating: R UPC: 085391107521

Gotti

A very impressive treatment of the rise and fall of New York crime boss John Gotti, this made-for-TV movie succeeds in large measure because of the outstanding work of Armand Assante (I, The Jury, Mambo Kings) as Gotti. Assante creates a complex portrayal of a man loyal to the mob while struggling with personal demons and his own self-destructive ambitions. The film traces the dapper don's rise through the ranks of the Gambino crime family, first through the patronage of his mentor (Anthony Quinn) and then through a brazen assassination of the Gambino boss. Eventually Gotti's world crashes around him as his arrogance over beating the government at trial and his thirst for the limelight causes a rift with his right-hand man, Sammy "The Bull" Gravano (William Forsythe). Gotti boasts terrific New York City locales and a truly impressive cast, including standout work by Forsythe and Quinn. But it's Assante's movie all the way, and he makes the most out of a larger than life character by making him seem no more, and no less, than human and flawed. --Robert Lane

The Mambo Kings

This period drama is hot, hot, hot. Stylish and sexy, it is adapted from the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, by Oscar Hijuelos, the story of two brothers who flee from Cuba in the early 1950s, heading for New York. Hoping to make a name for themselves as famous musicians, the duo face hardships and painful discoveries along the way. Armand Assante is the older of the two, with a smoldering Antonio Banderas as his younger, more impetuous brother. (In his first English-speaking role, Banderas delivered all of his lines phonetically.) The pulsating, sweaty energy of the first half of the film is not sustained throughout. Partly this is because a movie about the rise and fall of minor celebrities has been done to death. Even when the action slows down, however, the story does not bore. There is too much sensuality and vitality exuded by both Assante and Banderas. --Rochelle O'Gorman

In the 1950s, two Cuban brothers come to America to seek fame and fortune as musicians.

Hoffa

A titanic performance by Jack Nicholson powers this fact-and-fiction biography of Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa. From the opening moment--Hoffa sitting alone in the back of a car--Nicholson's performance is one of his best, and a rare role as a historical person. The sweeping all-American story of a common worker who reaches the highest pinnacle in the world's most powerful union is sweepingly told with wondrous detail, in wardrobe, sets, and trucks. The better-documented facts of Hoffa's life, including his struggle against Attorney General Bobby Kennedy (Kevin Anderson), supply the backbone of the story. But the hope of what the Teamsters are to the American Dream is what makes the film glow (swept along by David Newman's score). The screenplay by David Mamet takes two wild and entertaining divergences from fact. The first is the character of Hoffa's ubiquitous sidekick Bobby Ciaro, played by the film's director, Danny DeVito. It's a fictitious role, a composite character that allows the story to be clearly told, as does the second--Mamet's explanation of Hoffa's famous disappearance. --Doug Thomas

Screenwriter David Mamet's script combines real people with fictional characters in an attempt to portray the important people in Jimmy Hoffa's life. Danny DeVito's and Armand Assante's characters are actually composites of numerous Hoffa associates.

Director/co-star Danny DeVito's unforgettable epic stars Jack Nicholson as Jimmy Hoffa, the legendary Teamster boss whose mysterious disappearance has never been explained. The film traces Hoffa's passionate struggle to shape the nation's most influential labor union, his relationship with the Mob, and his subsequent conviction and prison term at the hand of Robert Kennedy.

Shark Swarm

The Seventh installment in the Maneater Series, Shark Swarm is the highly anticipated miniseries now available for the first time on DVD. For decades, the Pacific waters have been a dumping ground for atomic-testing debris, bacterial pollutants, pesticides, herbicides, and nuclear waste. Some ocean species died off. Others adapted. When a group of Marine Biologists discover a beached Bull Shark, they find that it has sensory organs exhibiting violent tendencies-even after death. But the news continues to get worse. When tourists begin disappearing all over the fishing town of Full Moon Bay, a team of scientists learn that a more dangerous species, the Great White, is now loose, 40 strong, and cutting through the waters together with one horrifying purpose - to kill for pleasure. featuring Daryl Hannah (Kill Bill), Armand Asante (American Gangster), John Schneider (Millville), Shark Swarm, a jaw-snapping, bone-crushing ecological thriller miniseries about the day nature really goes wild.