Denzell owned this film

Rating: 8/10 (6 November 2007)

I've read a lot about Frank Lucas, the Harlem drug lord of the 80's depicted in this story, and even though I liked this film for pure entertainment, it did vary so much from the truth about Lucas that it was closer to fiction. It did do the broad strokes about his life pretty well, but purposely added or subtracted many connecting details for greater audience entertainment value. Director Ridley Scott usually puts a lot more suspense, fear and terror into his films so I was surprised that there was so much less than his usual in this story of the kill or be killed jungle of street drug dealers in Harlem. There is almost no life on earth tougher and more life threatening every second of the day than that of a drug lord, and it was in reality much more threatening to his life and that of his family than was shown.
Denzell Washington as Lucas, even though he is as coolly intense as an actor can be, did not let much "street" break through his high and mighty, cool cat demeanor, even when the story might have been better with more of it for greater crime realism. However, his prominent role was by far the best one in the film and more convincing than Russell Crowe as Richie Roberts, an(the only?)honest cop soon to become a defense lawyer, who dogged Lucas to jail after he finally found out that Lucas was at the top of the drug dealer food chain, a perch that was heavily supported by the men in blue, most of whom were on the take. Crowe was satisfactory overall in his bad husband/good cop role, but it was Washington who really owned this film. He is such a powerful presence as an actor, and when he was watching or listening to someone you could almost feel the wind from the wheels turning in his head. That alone conveyed well the stone cold calculation necessary for survival at the top in his jungle.
A very entertaining film all in all, and I was glad to see that the storyline didn't kill Lucas off in a a fit of typical Hollywood, crime-does-not-pay, phony comeuppance, but he was shown briefly as he walked out of prison in his $50 suit, looking sadly out of place and a nobody in the modern outside world after so many lost years in prison. What could be more pitiful and humiliating than that one thing for anyone who used to have real power? Does any crime ever pay if you have to spend even one night in the very cruel and unloving embrace of the graybar hotel? Not to me.