Excellent IRONY runs throughout

Rating: 10/10 (6 November 2016)

American Gangster is one of the most structurally sound films in my memory, and it ranks right up there with Chinatown, in terms of this structure. To wit, you have a Protagonist FRANK LUCAS (Denzel Washington) who is a gangster, a murderer, and a dope pusher, but at least to the law enforcement task force that is tracking him, he seems to live a very ordered life: breakfast at 5am every morning, then a meeting with the accountant or the lawyer, putting flowers on his dead bosses grave every week without fail, and taking his mother to church on Sunday. As one character says, "Not the typical day in the life of a dope man, Ritchie". Which brings us to our Antagonist, the cop, RITCHIE ROBBINS (Russell Crowe) who is the ultimate boy scout, a guy who cannot be bought and always does the right thing, except in his personal life where he sleeps around with a lot of women, never sees his son, and generally treats his ex-wife badly. So, after Ritchie and his partner turn in 1 Million dollars that they discover in the back of a bookie's car, they become pariahs within the Police Department. This drives Ritchie's partner to abuse heroin, which eventually kills him, and when Ritchie comes to the morgue to ID the body of his former partner, he discovers the stamped BLUE MAGIC baggie that was full of junk that killed his friend. Of course, the PLOT DEVICE of the BLUE MAGIC baggie sets the Main Plot off in motion, as it is Frank Lucas' dope dealing organization that has coined the term BLUE MAGIC, and Frank is so serious about it, he even chastises a rival later in the film for "Copyright Infringement" of his product's name. As though gangsters handled things with copyright lawyers. These dueling ironies and a plot device that sets off the story into the Main Plot from the Sub Plot are some the most brilliant techniques I have seen used in any film in my lifetime. With Ridley Scott, you can usually expect excellence, but sometimes he whiffs, like with THE COUNSELLOR. But, here he worked off an excellent script, with excellent ironies in it, and he executes it beautifully. The seeds that are planted in the sub-plot of the first 20 minutes of the movie, where Frank's mentor and boss "Bumpy" Johnson is waxing philosophical to him about the ills of capitalism, mass consumerism, and cutting out the middle man are all points that Frank remembers and incorporates into his own business. Rather than getting his "supply" from local, mafia sources, Frank takes a trek to Vietnam with $400,000 in cash, and has a cousin of his in the US Army take him to the fields in the Golden Triangle, where he can buy direct from the source. And, then he bribes Army logistics guys to get his bundles of dope on military transport planes back to the United States, and everyone gets a piece. It's the only way he's able to "Be above the mafia in the dope game", selling heroin that is twice as potent for half as much. And, Ritchie takes notice. Ritchie is a very interesting character with a lot of personal problems, created by his passions, but at work he is all about business and doing the right thing. And, it takes him some time to figure out Frank Lucas is the guy he's really trying to target. Frank says, early in the film that "The loudest one in the room is the weakest one in the room." And, by this rationale, Frank should have listened to his own advice, because it is at a boxing match that Ritchie gets a hunch he can figure out who the Dope King of New York is by the way and hierarchy of how the gangsters are seated down close to the ring, but Frank is wearing a Chinchilla coat and hat, and drawing all kinds of attention to himself from Ritchie, the Italians, and even the Special Investigations Unit of NYC drug squad. And, the film takes a bad turn for our protagonist from this point on in the film. And, unlike Ace Rothstien in CASINO, our character Frank Lucas knows that he's messed up wearing that coat, and he burns it. Ritchie investigates Frank, figures out what is going on, what Frank is doing, and this culminates in one of the MOST rewarding endings and last 20 minutes of any films I have ever seen, so I won't ruin it for you! Denzel Washington and Russell Crow have never been better.