Gangsters fascinate us, at least on film. We can enjoy their outsider status, their ballsy rebellion against civilized society. Look at Scarface, Brian De Palma's epic about a Cuban immigrant who, simply by his almost reckless, in-your-face ambition, conquers the dope game and enriches himself and his family. And even when he goes down in a blaze of bullets, it is a glorious demise, his famous line, "Say hello to my little friends," etched forever in our collective memory.
So it should not surprise anyone the near-numbing buzz surrounding American Gangster, starring actor heavyweights Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe with Ridley Scott directing.
Just the names alone draw one in, but those are just cherries on top of a scrumptious dessert.
Here we see the rise and fall of Frank Lucas, a country boy from North Carolina who served as the driver and bodyguard of infamous Harlem gangster Bumpy Johnson (famously played by Laurence Fishburne in Hoodlum). Bumpy was beloved in Harlem. He was a refined gangster, his brutal violence muted by his occasional philosophical ruminations and his penchant for poetry.
In 1969, Bumpy Johnson dies, and Frank Lucas decides to make a name for himself, but like Frank Sinatra, he does it his way. He has tired of begging the Mafia a cut in the heroin game. His solution is textbook profit maximization -- cut out the middleman and then put out a better product than the competition and sell it at a lower price.
Soon, he corners the heroin game, taking in a $1 million a day. As played by Washington, Frank Lucas is a Southern gentleman, one who puts family first, who takes his sweet mother (played in fine form by Ruby Dee) to church every Sunday, who dresses nice and who is way smarter than his enemies.
On his tail is Richie Roberts, played by Russell Crowe. Roberts is an honest cop, the kind who returns $1 million, even as his more corrupt brethren look at him in disgust.
Scott's film is one of parallels. The acclaimed director switches back and forth between Lucas' rise to the top and Roberts' dogged pursuit of Lucas amid struggling his personal demons.
The movie clocks in at more than two hours, but Scott keeps a quick pace, sometimes too quick.
Washington's performance is good as always, but his characterization is a bit opaque. We either see him loving his family or coldly calculating his next move, which sometimes requires a bullet in the head of some knucklehead who crossed him.
Crowe's Roberts comes across as a bit more human, his flaws and motivations clearer.
Yet, it is clear that Washington is the star. We instinctively cheer his every victory, and even when he falls, we still love Lucas. How could we not? He does what every man and woman wants to do -- win on his own terms and answer to no one. We are drawn to bad guys because they are outsiders; they find a way where there is no way to succeed. And they do it with an irresistible charm.
Frank Lucas epitomizes that, as made clear in this 2000 New York Magazine article.
Scott certainly tries to clue us in on the horrific damage Lucas wrought in his own city, the thousands of overdoses caused by his product. And he does his best to show that there are consequences to what Lucas did.
But it is all to naught. We love our gangsters, even when they lose.
