Engrossing But Depressing Saga Of Black Drugs Baron In Sixties New York

Rating: 5/10 (2 July 2012)

Frank Lucas is an aspiring crimelord in Harlem in the late sixties, who uses his military connections from the Vietnam conflict to smuggle pure grade heroin into the US. Frank gradually carves out an empire, expanding his territory and paying off the authorities, but an inevitable day of reckoning is coming ...
This is a fairly straightforward gangster story, charting Frank's rise and fall over several years from the late sixties to the mid-seventies. We see his motivation to succeed, his ruthless methods in establishing himself as a force to be reckoned with, his intelligence and cunning, his aspirations for his family and friends, his paranoia as the cracks start to appear, and his ultimate downfall at the hands of the narcotics squad. In many ways the characters here are archetypes - The Crime Boss With A Heart and The Cop Who Can't Be Bought, but they are also often enigmatic and hard to read. Washington plays Frank as a thoughtful, careful, even moral man, which makes it hard to understand why he has no qualms about getting rich off the suffering and misery of black Americans caused by the poison he spreads. The movie is perhaps at its most effective when contrasting Frank's elegant surroundings with the squalor and depravity of wasted addicts shooting up his powder in sordid hallways and bathrooms. The danger with this type of material is that in essence Frank is a completely worthless human being; a scumbag killer and dope-peddler who when caught squeals like a pig about every crook he knows, but as played by such a charismatic and gifted actor he becomes much more empathetic and noble. As a straight thriller though, it's fairly gripping stuff and the recreation of the period on such a grand scale is superb. Everybody in the large cast is great, from Dee as Mama, to Gooding as a rival infringing Frank's trademark, to Gugino as Crowe's soon-to-be-ex-wife - I especially like Williams, who is riveting in his one scene at the start as Frank's mentor Bumpy. A solid if not stellar crime thriller, albeit something of a downer, and loosely based on real-life events of the time. Trivia - Washington and Crowe appeared together previously in the 1995 sci-fi thriller Virtuosity, with the good guy / bad guy roles reversed.