Review: "American Gangster"

Inspired by an article profiling drug dealer Frank Lucas for “New York” magazine seven years ago, "American Gangster" really means business.

The film opens strong as Frank (Denzel Washington) pours gas on an unknown Puerto Rican man, sets him ablazing and then pumps a couple of shots into the guy as rough mercy. Things don't get any nicer from there.

Frank is the driver for Bumpy Jones (Clarence Williams III), the benevolent gangster-lord of Harlem. But Bumpy, incensed by a discount department store, mutters a final judgment before dying of a heart attack: "This is what's wrong with America -- it's gotten so big you can't find your way ... What right do they have cutting out the suppliers, pushing all the middlemen out, buying direct from the manufacturer?"

Bumpy's not long in the ground before Frank seizes on his dying mentor's words and spins them to his own benefit. He flies to war-torn Vietnam, making his way deep into the jungle and using his entire savings to buy a load of pure heroin from a Chinese warlord, which he then smuggles into the U.S. aboard military planes with the connivance of an army friend and sells in high grade at cut-rate prices on the street, branding his merchandise “Blue Magic” for quality and racking up sales. As he continues his unusual and brilliant import scheme, he brings his family up from Tar Heel country (The movie gets his roots wrong, saying he's from Greensboro, North Carolina: He grew up in tiny LaGrange, about 10 miles southeast of Goldsboro, which he left at 12 in the early 1940s.) to New York City, where he buys an estate for his gray-haired mother (Ruby Dee, just turned 83) and takes his brothers (including Huey, played by Chiwetel Ejiofor) into the business; works out a distribution deal with his Harlem rival Nicky Barnes (Cuba Gooding, Jr.) and Italian mafioso Dominic Cattano (Armand Assante); and weds a beauty contest winner (Lymari Nadal). Frank’s on top of the world, leaving no trace of evidence connecting him to his “Blue Magic” and underplaying the flashy gangland stereotype but ruling his empire when necessary with an iron -- and violent -- hand.

Of course, there’s the law to deal with, on the one hand the corrupt New York City special investigations squad led by chief narcotics detective Trupo (Josh Brolin), who menacingly demands his usual cut of the profits. But he proves less threatening to Frank’s business than Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe), this film’s version of Eliot Ness, a detective whose squeaky-clean career is not mirrored by his messy personal life: a custody battle with his wife (Carla Gugino) over his son, womanizing, and financial troubles. But Richie gets appointed by his boss (Ted Levine) to lead a special narcotics federal task force, and he's determined bring down some major criminals, including Frank.

Richie faces his own challenges on the other side of the law. NYC police are, in general, so corrupt that an honest cop is a pariah. When Richie seizes and surrenders $970,000 to his superior officer, the cynical joke -- "Where's the rest of it?" is funny only because it's based in truth. Most of Richie's fellow cops would have taken the cash, and they can't trust someone so trustworthy. The first Ali-Frazier fight serves as a reference point for the film, which spans the years from 1968 to the mid 1970s.

Director Ridley Scott (whose “Gladiator” masterpiece is one of my ten favorite films) and screenwriter Steve Zaillian try to develop each character equally, though it's really Washington's charismatic crook who holds our interest. That's no knock on Crowe, who's solid. Zaillian's script works to portray Frank and Richie as mirror-image strivers -- Frank looking for new possibilities in dealing, Richie going to law school at night -- and shows us how innovations in crime are matched by innovations in crime fighting. Frank wants to work around the Italian mob’s established structure of heroin importing; Richie wants to work without the corrupt infrastructure of the local cops.

Eventually, Richie fastens on Frank and breaks up his brazen, all-or-nothing attempt to ship in one huge last load of heroin as the American effort in Vietnam is collapsing. Before long the two men are facing one another in jail, with Frank negotiating turn state’s evidence in return for special treatment, and Richie getting his opportunity to show off his legal chops in court.

As Frank’s and Richie’s stories gradually intersect, the film’s tone wavers between different themes. Is “American Gangster” a parable of American capitalism, where men like Frank sell narcotics because it's the most profitable work available? Is it a cautionary, rise-and-fall tale about a drug dealer's life and times? Is it the portrait of a dogged cop trying to crack a narcotics smuggling ring? Or of a cop fighting the more insidious evil of police corruption? Or is it just a riveting tale of cop-versus-crook, with two formidable foes circling each other warily, never meeting until their final showdown? The listed possibilities call to mind a host of other films, like “Traffic,” “Scarface,” “The French Connection,” “Prince of the City,” “Heat.”

There are many moments when Ridley Scott's epic feels like a patchwork made of other films, other images. One music cue recycles Bobby Womack's title song from “Across 110th Street.” Frank's twisted vision of the American dream ("This is where I'm from. This is where my family is. My business. My mother. This is my place. This is my country. This is America.") sounds like a paraphrase from “The Godfather.”

But there are also many strong moments where something unique flashes through “American Gangster,” which make you wish there were more of them. Frank's such a businessman that he considers how Nicky Barnes dilutes his dope to maximize street profit "trademark infringement." Richie only becomes aware of Frank's importance after spotting him seated many rows ahead of better-known criminals at the Frasier-Ali fight: "His seats were phenomenal. ..." In a devastating third act speech, Ruby Dee gives the movie its one resounding note of moral outrage. And in the film's most tense scene -- and the one that suggests what “American Gangster” might have been -- Richie's search of Frank's dope plane is derailed by a sneering U.S. Attorney (Roger Bart) because he simply can't believe the idea Frank's been able to get a direct connection, racism overriding police work.

Ridley Scott, who took over for Antoine Fuqua ("Training Day"), puts together a spectacular film on the production level. He and his crew get details right: the clothes, the look of a Harlem diner, the naked women assembling packets of "Blue Magic" heroin in an apartment in the projects, where a wild chase through the hallways caps the film. Scott treats us to many wide street shots and scenes in crowded clubs. Every element from the store fronts to the cars to the costumes look completely genuine. You believe what’s happening at every minute of “American Gangster” could be a very close recreation of what actually went down. There’s a legitimacy to the production that elevates it above what many other directors can do.

But the emotional fire burns only intermittently. We’re never given much of a reason to care about Frank or Richie and so the film becomes a vivid recreation without a dramatic purpose. Everyone involved got the "how" and the "what" of this story down great but forgot the "why." We never learn much about either Frank or Richie beyond their actions and it makes the whole piece shockingly cold and detached.

Except for one 30-second story about seeing a cousin killed by racist cops in North Carolina, we learn nothing about Frank’s past: He's just an empty-hearted killer with the shrewd instincts of a corporate head, and he's willing to get his fingers bloody when necessary. We learn more about Richie in comparison, who's portrayed as one of the few honest cops in North Jersey in the 1960s. But not how or why he turned out that way.

The last 40 minutes of "American Gangster" are as brilliantly directed, acted and action-packed as anything since, well, last year's Oscar-winning mob movie "The Departed," but the film runs long at 157 minutes. Washington and Crowe, two of today’s best leading men, have an easy chemistry when they collide. Still, there isn’t much to their characters. Scott is a great visual designer, but he has rarely brought full human dimension to his characters and I don't feel he does it here.

“American Gangster” is too well made not to enjoy, but it doesn’t get under one’s skin. It’s a good film that feels like it could have been great.