Boring

Rating: 5/10 (9 January 2008)

There is nothing about this film that would make me watch it again. Firstly, the plot. Frank Lucas (Washington), a black man from Harlem involved in organized crime imports pure Herion from Vietnam and makes a killing selling on the streets of New York City. He is a ruthless gangster which is capable of doing anything to defend his business. Enter Russell Crowe at Det. Richie Roberts, the vehemently honest cop who once handed back $1 million in unmarked bills that he found. Roberts heads up a special task force to find who is smuggling this pure heroin into the streets on the New York.
That brief summation is basically all that is worth noting sans the ending. There's is some insight to Roberts' family, his womanizing, and divorce proceedings with his wife, which seems to have been included to fill time. There is no interesting character development, perhaps other than Lucas' mother, once full of praise for her boy finally faces the harsh truth about his life of crime. The performance's aren't that great either, there is just nothing in this script for them to work with. It seems that the writers had this potentially interesting story to tell but evidently no clue about how to tell it. Subsequently, the plot jumps around all over the place. "Who's this guy Lucas' is beating up now? Pfft. Who cares"..is what was my eventual mind-set. Forgettable, really.