A modern Classic!

Rating: 9/10 (12 November 2007)

Apart from seeing The Departed last year, I can't remember the last time I saw a good mob movie. Maybe that's a good thing, since mob movies these days aren't what they used to be, anyway. It's also been a while since we've gotten to see Denzel as an out of control bad guy. Strangely enough, American Gangster isn't really a mob movie, and Denzel isn't out of control either.
American Gangster shows us how Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington) took over Harlem in the 1970s. In the hay day of heroin, he sold it at twice the potency and half the price and he never got caught. How did he do that? By taking a Wal-Mart style approach to the drug trade. Lucas goes to the jungles of Vietnam himself and buys directly from the manufacturer. He then ships it back in the coffins of dead soldiers. That's when I realized what I was watching. It's not about the mob; it's about Frank Lucas, the man who won out over the mob, and about and the man chasing him, Ritchie Roberts (Russell Crowe).
Unlike most gangsters of the era Lucas never wears his career and money on his sleeve. As he reprimands his brother for wearing clothes that are too flashy, we get to see the beauty in his method. He dresses like a moderately successful businessman, keeps a low profile, and spends evenings at home with his family. He even takes his mother to church on Sundays. When he does make a "public" appearance, he's with baseball players and other celebrities, not drug lords and business partners. But all that subtle modesty doesn't stop him from shooting a man in the head in broad day light.
It's this "modest" lifestyle coupled with his death grip on his business that takes him to the top. Lucas is a polar opposite of the man trying to put him behind bars, Ritchie Roberts. Early on in the film, Roberts finds $1 million in cash and rightfully turns it in. For this, he is ridiculed by other police officers for being a boy scout. It was sad to see someone ostracized for doing the right thing. And scenes like this brought me back to the fact that I was watching a true story, not a work of fiction.
For nearly half of the film, Roberts doesn't even know he's looking for Frank Lucas. And how could he? Lucas keeps that ever so low profile, and it gets to the point where all business is done through Franks brother and then to him. The idea of a black man taking away the drug business from the Mafia was unheard of, but Frank did it. There's no "guns blazing" end to this film. Ritchie and Frank sit down and have a conversation. With Frank's help, Ritchie ends up taking down the majority of the Drug Task Force in New York.
There should be no doubt that the film does touch on both drug trafficking and police work, but it also takes a look at the effects on the families of the two sides, respectively. While Lucas does as much as he can to provide for his family, Roberts gives up his marriage and his son to put the bad guys behind bars. Both men have to deal with lying to the people they love, and oddly enough, they both face police corruption head on. This is probably what leads to their mutual respect.
American Gangster is a modern classic. I have to say that Denzel is such a likable actor, that even though he plays a ruthless drug lord, we're always sitting there, hoping he wins.