Not So Secret Squirrel

Rating: 5/10 (9 April 2008)

Based on a true story of 70's drug trafficking, American Gangster stars Denzil Washington as Frank Lucas - a driver for Bumpy Johnson - a Harlem mob boss who is also something of a father figure and mentor. When Bumpy dies suddenly of a heart attack Lucas inherits the kingdom. Dispensing with the showiness of his rivals, and inheriting corporate branding techniques to sell his dope, Lucas' rise is swift. Along with his obsessive reticence Lucas is also unique in his pioneering method of bringing heroin to America via air force planes out of South East Asia. Crap dad/honest cop Ritchie Roberts (Russell Crowe) has his sights set on bringing down the operation but Lucas' 'under the radar' profile makes him an impossible target. Roberts' campaign can go nowhere until he can identify the ringleader.
Apart from the de rigueur 'crime doesn't pay' platitude, American Gangsters' message seems to be that there's no accounting for taste and that those with zero dress sense can triumph over those in designer wear. The campaign of Crowe's unglamorous and dowdy cop with rubbish hair appears hopeless against Washington's immaculate Brioni suited drug lord; that is until he commits a massive fashion faux par by attending a prize fight dressed as a squirrel. "The loudest man in the room is the weakest man in the room." Failing to take his own advice the demise of Frank Lucas is mere paperwork after that.
The depiction of Lucas' corporate marketing - a la Coca Cola - to sell 'quality' heroin to the 'discerning smack head' is something of a hoot. Maybe that's how it went down in 70's Harlem but most users in my experience would inject the contents of a leper's colostomy bag on the off-chance of a hit. Also Lucas's smuggling of his product into America via air force planes from Vietnam is not quite the innovation. He may have believed this was his baby but it's a fair bet that this enterprise was pioneered, marshalled and monitored by the C.I.A, partly as a means to keeping urban negroes in a state of stupor so as not to organise themselves 'Black Panther' or 'Nation of Islam' style. Whether he was aware of it or not Lucas was almost certainly working for the 'man'.
The big 'toe to toe' between Washington and Crowe falls short of the build up. For one, it's a long time coming, and by the time this keenly awaited 'final reckoning' takes place Lucas has already been arrested and on the ropes. It's a great scene, but fails to ignite in the way DeNiro and Pacino's 'two guys over a coffee' showdown in Heat does where no one has the upper hand and the prize is still to be taken.
American Gangster's DNA is impeccable; you've got a director in Ridley Scott who is probably incapable of making a bad film and two of the biggest and charismatic stars of the day in Washington and Crowe. On paper it must have been beautiful but maybe it's this fail safe 'cannot lose' combination that raises the bar of expectation to an unreachable degree which excludes American Gangster from the cigar handing out ceremony accorded the likes of The Godfather, Scarface and Goodfellas. The tone and timbre of the piece evokes the best of gritty 70's crime thrillers but there's a certain restraint about the whole affair - as if taking its cue from its antagonist - and restraint is an arm a mob movie can't afford to chance.