Wikipedia:Peer review/American Gangster (film)/archive1

American Gangster (film)
This peer review discussion has been closed. I've listed this article for peer review because I would like to nominate the article tot GA status. A lot of work has been put into it, and I would like some feedback on the article so I can possibly make some improvements.

Currently, I know that the plot section needs some serious work. I have not seen the movie, so I may not be able to accurately summarize the plot. I would like some help in trying to reduce the size of the plot section.

Thanks, DAP388 (talk) 03:08, 6 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Comments from Jappalang

Plot
 * This is indeed too long. Focus on what is important; necessary elements are not decided in a willy-nilly manner.  Items that are minor could be moved to other sections (Production, Criticisms, etc) if they have the right context (and not too sudden if introduced on their own).  Key things to summarize: what is the story about, how does it develop, how does it end?  Flesh out only with elements that support key points.  Off-hand, it seems the story of Ellsworth "Bumpy" Johnson is not needed (that is a minor detail and the commentary in later section is fine).  The same goes for Richie Roberts' personal life.  I am pretty sure there are other items that can be pruned without losing the essential.

Cast
 * I would advise getting rid of this unless more substantial information, either about the characters or the actors about their roles, can be placed here (e.g. Conan the Barbarian). Important actors are already noted in the Plot section in brackets; just like American Beauty, there is no need for a trivial cast list as repetition.

Production
 * There is too much dates here; it is not needed to keep stating on which day or in which month something happened. Focus on the key dates and just the follow-on events as such (see the above-mentioned articles&mdash;Conan, American Beauty).


 * There is very little on what I consider as the meat of production ("filming") and too much details on the events before filming started. WP:UNDUE comes to mind.


 * "Director Ridley Scott produced television commercials from the 1960s to the 1980s, which entailed visits to New York City in the same time period in which the film's story took place."
 * I am a bit hesitant over this sentence. Is it trying to say that during the 1960s to 80s, Ridley Scott produced television commercials that required him to visit NYC?

Box office
 * "The film achieved numerous feats: it had the highest-grossing opening weekend since for a mature-rated film over 150 minutes since Troy, and it became the fastest-grossing crime film in history, beating out its preceder Sin City ($29 million)."
 * The way this is written ("feats", "in history") sets off POV alarms in my head. "R-rated" (source) is not quite "mature-rated" (article); what about NC-17? "Gangster film" (source) is not "crime film" (article); what about films about confidence games, murders, kidnappings?  Furthermore, "preceder" is not a word in any proper dictionary.  If you mean "predecessor", I fail to see any such relationship between Sin City and American Gangster (they are not part of the same series).


 * "It marked the biggest opening weekend out of any film in both Washington and Crowe's careers, scoring considerably higher than the Inside Man and Gladiator, respectively."
 * This is quite an awkward sentence ("marked ... out", "scoring [in what?]").


 * "It outgrossed Bee Movie by $4.5 million.", "... and beating out Beowulf two consecutive times."
 * Are these significant in any way? There is no contect on why either movie would be important to an analysis on American Gangster.


 * "... American Gangster began expansion into Italy, ..."
 * How does a film expand?


 * "It outgrossed it preceder The Departed by 68 percent."
 * Grammar, spelling... and the same issue as above with Sin City

Critical response
 * Why is used when all the information it presents is already in the prose?  The template is redundant.


 * "... Jonathan Crocker of Time Out London was polarized with the film, ..."
 * A person cannot be "polarized".

Sources
 * http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/Movies/01/22/film.american.gangster.ap/ and http://pressacademy.com/satawards/awards2007.shtml are dead links.


 * http://www.comingsoon.net/news/topnews.php?id=6358 is related to information in this article.


 * What makes http://www.harlemfur.com/2006/08/harlem_street_shooting_america.html a reliable source?


 * What makes http://www.newcriminologist.com/article.asp?nid=2019 a reliable source?


 * What makes http://www.scoringsessions.com/news/87/ a reliable source?

External links
 * Why are there so many links here? There is no need for Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic, and Box Office Mojo; they are already used as sources and linked in the article.  If the links provide pertinent information (possibly Dateline NBC interviews), why are they not used as sources?  The reliable AllRovi link already has what the unreliable IMDb link has, so why is the latter here?


 * http://web.archive.org/web/20080624041739/http://www.dropmagazine.com/frank-lucas-jr-video-interview/ does not have said videos.

This article needs a lot of work, especially in its language. Jappalang (talk) 07:21, 23 November 2011 (UTC)