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Article: The real 'American Gangster'
- Article from:
- Tribune-Review/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
- Article date:
- November 8, 2007
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2007 Tribune-Review/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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WASHINGTON -- "American Gangster" opened last weekend and many of
those who bought tickets -- $43.6 million worth from Friday through
Sunday -- surely came away feeling as Mark Twain did when he said
his memory was so powerful he could remember things that never even
happened. Many moviegoers must have thought: I remember seeing this
brand-new movie before.
They did. Its emulations of "The Godfather" are obviously
intended to be obvious. But these genuflections to the archetype
make "American Gangster" more, not less, interesting as a symptom of
something permanent in the American mind -- cynicism for
sentimentalists.
In "The Godfather," bloody murders of Michael Corleone's rivals
occur ...