Harlem’s Hero And Heroin

Denzel and Russell can't save 'American Gangster' from feeling like just another Hollywood mob job.

Movie Trailer: 'American Gangster'

11/2/07: Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe star in this crime film about a kingpin from Harlem.

From the magazine issue dated Nov 12, 2007

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Ridley Scott's "American Gangster" announces, with its grandiose title and epic sweep, that it wants to take its place among the "Godfathers" and "Scarfaces" as a seminal chronicle of criminal royalty. If it fails, it's not for lack of trying. It's based on the true story of Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington), a cool, brilliant, ambitious sharecropper's son from North Carolina who worked his way to the top of the New York drug trade in the 1970s. Unlike his great Harlem competitor, Nicky Barnes (Cuba Gooding Jr.), Lucas cut out the white middlemen—i.e., the Mafia. The Vietnam War was on, and Lucas got his heroin direct from the source in Southeast Asia, shipping his goods home on military planes in the coffins of American soldiers. His product, Blue Magic, outsold his rivals' because it was purer and cheaper. It was also deadlier.

Scott's movie, written by Steve Zaillian, regards the control-freak Lucas—a figure of dapper, understated elegance and lethal viciousness—with a mixture of awe and fear. There's nothing new about a gangster movie that both glamorizes and condemns its hero (a certain hypocrisy is built into the genre), but "Gangster" further hedges its bets by making the corrupt white cops (led by Josh Brolin's loathsome Detective Trupo) far more odious than Lucas. It doesn't try to soft-pedal the human cost of Lucas's success—grisly images of dead junkies abound. But at the same time it posits the pusher as a triumphant example of black capitalism, the first African-American to get the Mafia to work on his terms. This tricky moral balancing act may be one reason "American Gangster" never fully ignites: it's a movie that's always watching its own shadow.

Lucas's story is crosscut with that of his pursuer, the scruffy, womanizing, legendarily honest cop Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe), who's put in charge of the NYPD's drug unit. As charismatic as Crowe is, the cop's story can't compete with the crook's. You have to wait until the end for these two stars to share a scene, and when they do team up as odd-couple crimebusters, it seems to belong to another movie.

For all its grit, style and atmosphere, "Gangster" never sweeps you away. It has neither the lurid bravado of De Palma's "Scarface" nor the intimate grasp of the criminal lifestyle you find in Scorsese or Coppola. You stay with it because of Washington's commanding presence. He gives us a man whose eyes miss nothing, and his fire-and-ice performance demands we watch him with the same rapt attention. There's a great story here, but it feels like "American Gangster" hasn't been mined for all its riches.

I also watched this movie but did not walk away so enthralled by it as some. Rather, I walked away confused at how I was almost sympathetic in the end to Frank Lucas (Washington). I credit
my initial emotional reaction to the acting of Mr. Washington. I understand the story and I get why there are people who look up to criminals like him. I would ask them to look again at the damage and destruction that they did to this country and their supposive communities. After re-examining these people, I'm confident that viewers will find the Lucas' of this world much more harmful than good.

I am a complete advocate of artistic expression and telling a good story. However, this particular movie comes very close to lacking a moral conscience. What ever happened to social responsibility? I would hate to think what some poor 18 year old young man who scrapped up enough money to watch the movie (who may have not had a good male role model in his life) might think when he walks away. Myself, I'm grown up enough to know good vs bad, right vs wrong. The way this story is told almost blurs those distinctions.

The movie was fine, I won't argue that. However, I believe too much has been said about how these people should be looked up to. I guess I just had stronger role models in my life and for that I am thankful. I never looked up to businessmen or politicians. I looked up to blue collared, hard working men and women who earned every honest penny that they made in their lives (teachers, construction workers, nurses, or anyone for that matter who worked a steady 9-5). I still look up to these people today.

Frank Lucas might have been smart and he might have worked hard at what he did. In the end though, I'm sure he looked at himself in the mirror a few times and saw a person that was none of the above. He didn't redeem himself by snitching to the police, he was just looking out for #1 (the person he was looking out for all along).

Mr Ansen, I read your review of American Gangster in the November 12th edition of Newsweek Magazine. I am going to have to totally disagree with your review about this movie. It has been along time since I have watched a movie voluntarily three times in a row. This movie, i would have to say, is not Denzel's best, in my opinion, but the movie itself was riveting, had lots of action, and showed the strength of black men during this era. I think alot of times what you get from movies like this is a stereotype that people have about black men not being able to have this much power and influence and for them to see a real life movie of this sort based on a black man that had these capabilites, it just makes mainstream white America not to want to belive or buy into it. You said "it's a movie that's always watching its own shadow", I dont know what you meant by this but i can honestly tell you that this movie will be one that I store in my memory bank as a classic that i will make sure i watch at least once per year, like Scarface.

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Posted By: jojoc10 @ 11/09/2007 8:43:30 PM

I also watched this movie but did not walk away so enthralled by it as some. Rather, I walked away confused at how I was almost sympathetic in the end to Frank Lucas (Washington). I credit
my initial emotional reaction to the acting of Mr. Washington. I understand the story and I get why there are people who look up to criminals like him. I would ask them to look again at the damage and destruction that they did to this country and their supposive communities. After re-examining these people, I'm confident that viewers will find the Lucas' of this world much more harmful than good.

I am a complete advocate of artistic expression and telling a good story. However, this particular movie comes very close to lacking a moral conscience. What ever happened to social responsibility? I would hate to think what some poor 18 year old young man who scrapped up enough money to watch the movie (who may have not had a good male role model in his life) might think when he walks away. Myself, I'm grown up enough to know good vs bad, right vs wrong. The way this story is told almost blurs those distinctions.

The movie was fine, I won't argue that. However, I believe too much has been said about how these people should be looked up to. I guess I just had stronger role models in my life and for that I am thankful. I never looked up to businessmen or politicians. I looked up to blue collared, hard working men and women who earned every honest penny that they made in their lives (teachers, construction workers, nurses, or anyone for that matter who worked a steady 9-5). I still look up to these people today.

Frank Lucas might have been smart and he might have worked hard at what he did. In the end though, I'm sure he looked at himself in the mirror a few times and saw a person that was none of the above. He didn't redeem himself by snitching to the police, he was just looking out for #1 (the person he was looking out for all along).
- Reply
- Report Abuse
Posted By: chanamolet @ 11/07/2007 4:32:33 AM

Mr Ansen, I read your review of American Gangster in the November 12th edition of Newsweek Magazine. I am going to have to totally disagree with your review about this movie. It has been along time since I have watched a movie voluntarily three times in a row. This movie, i would have to say, is not Denzel's best, in my opinion, but the movie itself was riveting, had lots of action, and showed the strength of black men during this era. I think alot of times what you get from movies like this is a stereotype that people have about black men not being able to have this much power and influence and for them to see a real life movie of this sort based on a black man that had these capabilites, it just makes mainstream white America not to want to belive or buy into it. You said "it's a movie that's always watching its own shadow", I dont know what you meant by this but i can honestly tell you that this movie will be one that I store in my memory bank as a classic that i will make sure i watch at least once per year, like Scarface.