A morality tale epic battle of wits between two titans

Rating: 8/10 (7 December 2007)

One of the oldest film genres, the gangster film used to be populated with small, minute-scaled personal stories of redemption or personal achievement. But in the 1970's this genre quickly evolved, in particular with the help of directors such as Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese and Brian De Palma, into a genre identified with broad, sprawling epic depictions of loyalty, family, and rise-and-fall tales: the gangster epic. Directly continuing this grand cinematic tradition, Ridley Scott delivers a fantastic work or extensive, grand proportions in all the possible aspects of film-making technique, cinematographic craft, and historical precision.
Steven Zaillian, the man who penned Schindler's List and Gangs of New York, delivers a broad, sprawling and wonderful screenplay more than fitting of the word "epic". Zaillian provides us with a cornucopia of details concerning everything from Frank Lucas' rise to power, his work methods and his relations both with his family and with other gangsters; and on the other end of the spectrum, Richie Roberts' work ethics, relations with co-workers, eventual assignment to take down the drug kingpins, and all this coupled with his own personal problems and family life. We see the rise, the stay at the top, the fall, the aftermath, and everything in-between, and are spared no historical or fascinating detail whatsoever. That said, the script does have one major weakness: I feel Zaillian could have summarized the aftermath a little more than it ended up taking. But while the script certainly is meant to serve as a giant, broad magnifying glass to this particular period in American crime history  and certainly more than delivers on this historical plane  it's very hard to miss what Zaillian was truly aiming at here, and that is the facing off of two titanic forces of nature.
What is most fascinating about how Zaillian chooses to portray his two main subjects is not only how negated they are, but also the nature of these negatives. Frank Lucas, the drug kingpin who kills at will and who is single-handedly responsible for the cheap distribution of illegal and highly deadly drugs on the streets, is shown as a charming, relentless family man whose first and foremost order of business is providing his mother and brothers with a large estate to make sure they are set for life; he arranges meetings for his talented nephew with heads of baseball teams, he is faithful to his wife, he goes to church every Sunday with his mother, and he generally works his hardest at constantly keeping his cool. Detective Richie Roberts, on the other hand, is an undeniable good soul; a recurrently mentioned point in his career is that he found $1 million in untraceable dollars in the trunk of a car and turned it in. He is the laughing stock of the entire police force for being straight as an arrow and entirely honest, and his devotion in the taking down of first Lucas and eventually the crooked NYC police force is truly inspirational. But Richie is divorced, he skips out on the sparse meetings he has with his kid, he is a womanizer and we know that he cheated on his wife and engages in casual sex; he is a lonely recluse who takes night courses and always seems to be preoccupied with something else. Judging by their characters, you'd think that Lucas would be the one to root for, and indeed this negation, this battle of the wits, is the centerpiece of the epic drama.
And who better to play two opposing titan forces than two of the undeniably most titanic actors of our generation, Russell Crowe and Denzel Washington. Crowe's performance is pitch-perfect and he effortlessly embodies Richie's every trait, from his indecisiveness and preoccupied nature to his blind devotion and honesty to his flawless accent. And yet, he is indisputably overshadowed by Denzel Washington's powerhouse performance as the charming, murderous family-man drug kingpin Lucas, who he plays with an almost animal ferocity that comes so incredibly naturally to him. The supporting cast also features some familiar faces that deserve a little more time in the spotlight than they currently have, namely Chiwetel Ejiofor, who plays Lucas' brother who gets a little too caught up in the luxurious life Lucas provides him and who continues to deliver fantastic roles in the movies he acts in, both as a supporting and as a lead player; and Josh Brolin, who plays the corrupt cop with such dirty sleaze-bagginess that he can truly be viewed as the film's one true villain and who must have been in more high-profile movies in 2007 alone more than he has been in during the rest of his entire career beforehand.
I have noticed that many movies in 2007 are morality tales: the good guys have their many flaws and weaknesses emphasized while the bad guys are portrayed as likable, admirable persons despite their actions. Ridley Scott, undeniably one of our greatest working directors, delivers a fantastic entry into the crime epic genre that works both as a stunning and brilliant cinematic achievement, as a historic depiction of crime history, as a rise-and-fall story, and as a morality tale epic battle of wits between two titans. One is only left to regret the fact that Ridley Scott didn't shoot this epic in all of the 2.35:1 aspect ratio glory his films are usually identified with.