Ridley Scott relishes the opportunity to present two men whose lives are intertwined without their knowledge in his new mob drama, American Gangster.
Based on true events and set in New York City in the ’70s, the film evokes the ambience — but not the brilliant style — of Sidney Lumet’s two superb cop drama exposés of the era, Serpico and Prince of the City. While those films concentrated on the police corruption that plagued the city in that era, Scott’s film, with a screenplay by Oscar- winner Steven Zaillian, almost serves as a prequel to Lumet’s films. It was the massive investigation into the life and times of druglord Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington) by dogged cop Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe) that brought to light the corruption that riddled the NYC police department, centered in the city’s narcotics bureau.
Frank Lucas likes to imagine himself as a robber baron. He comes up with a scheme to buy drugs directly from a grower in Southeast Asia, bring it to the U.S. in the coffins of dead American soldiers from Vietnam, and provide his city with top product at a good price. The Mafia, forced to buy the stash of French connection drugs from the corrupt cops led by Det. Trupo (Josh Brolin), can’t compete. The greedy cops are selling a low-purity grade, while Lucas and his numerous family members recruited from legitimate jobs in North Carolina to join his criminal enterprise, are selling high-purity smack.
The corpses pile up from drugs that are too pure, while Lucas presents an effective front as a Harlem businessman who gives out Thanksgiving turkeys to the poor. Scenes of dead junkies and crying babies are interspersed with scenes of Lucas’ grand lifestyle as a hard-working capitalist. He might be a devoted family man who gives his mom (played by Ruby Dee) a beautiful mansion, but he is also a ruthless killer.
The movie rightfully presents the dirty cops as worse than Lucas because they are supposed to protect and serve. Richie Roberts is a cop ridiculed because when he found a million dollars of drug money during an investigation, he turned it in without grabbing some for himself. Roberts hates the dirty cops around him, but he manages to find a good crew to begin the arduous process of following the drugs and locating the source. It takes years to track down the small leads that finally take Roberts to Lucas. It was an era when the idea that a black man was in charge above the Mafia was laughed at as ludicrous.
One scene that destroys Lucas’ veneer of respectability features the magnificent Ruby Dee letting her son know she understands what’s what. That scene crackles with energy. Unfortunately, this high point also points out that for too much of the film’s two and half hour length, the story drags. Washington and Crowe have some solid acting moments along the way. However, what should be a tense buildup to the moment when Lucas and Roberts cross paths too often loses steam.
American Gangster is an interesting movie, but it never reaches the moment when it rises above the cop vs. crook genre to instant classic status. With Washington and Crowe locking horns orchestrated by Ridley Scott, we had every right to anticipate an earth-shattering experience.
American Gangster never quite gets there, except for a slap delivered by Ruby Dee. n