You can always tell Hollywood’s getting into serious movie mode when they start screening movies that won’t hit theaters for another month or so. In today’s film industry, when a big-budget movie is done and all the tweaking & editing is finished MORE THAN A MONTH before its release date, then it’s a clear sign the studio is confident it has a winner on its hands.

And that’s what Universal has with "American Gangster." (And I’m not just saying that because REEL TALK, Uni Studios, is part of the NBC Universal family.) I saw a screening the other night and was simply blown away.

Director Ridley Scott’s 70s crime saga grabs you by the back of your neck from the very first shot in the movie, and doesn’t let you go until the very end. Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe are as superb as you expect them to be.

What separates Scott from lesser directors is that he doesn’t take shortcuts on the details. From the cars to the clothes, its like you fell in a time warp and landed back in the ‘Me Decade.’

And you know how there are about a dozen 70s songs that show up in every movie set in that decade? (Like Thelma Houston’s ‘Don’t Leave Me This Way’ – the royalties that song earns from Hollywood must be huge!) Well, you won’t hear any of those familiar tunes here. Don’t expect the usual NYC cinematic beauty shots. The New York in this picture is dirty and dangerous and unfamiliar to most moviegoers and really adds to the mood.

BTW, the guy Denzel portrays, Frank Lucas, was a notorious real-life Harlem drug kingpin who was bigger than the Mafia in the early 1970s heroin trade. I’m amazed its taken this long for someone to make a movie about this ruthless, fascinating character.

“American Gangster” opens November 2. Jeffrey & Alison will review the film that week on Reel Talk.