American Gangster

Call it the black Scarface or the Harlem Godfather or just one hell of an exciting movie, but the fact-based, 1970s-era American Gangster is already looking like a major awards contender. Denzel Washington looms like a colossus as notorious drug lord Frank Lucas, and in the still, watchful center of his volcanic performance youll find the measure of a dangerous man. Theres more good news: A combustible Russell Crowe channels Serpico as Richie Roberts, the honest Jersey cop who aches to take Frank down. Steven Zaillian, sourcing Mark Jacobsons 2000 New York magazine interview with Lucas (The Return of Superfly), brings scrappy life to a script that spans more than a decade. Camera legend Harris Savides shoots on the fly, as if hed sneaked into a Seventies time capsule. And Ridley Scott, at the top of his game, directs like a man possessed. Jay-Z did a hip-hop concept album, unconnected to the soundtrack, to pay tribute.

So whats the downside? The movie is long (157 minutes), overstuffed (horn-dog Richies court fight against his wife for child custody belongs on Lifetime), shadowed by innovators (Coppola, Scorsese, The Sopranos) and limited by giving equal time to Richie when dont kid yourself Frank is the flame that draws us in. We see Frank first torching a victim, then pumping him full of bullets. In business, Frank doesnt believe in a job half done. An uneducated force of nature from North Carolina who hits New York as a driver for black mobster Bumpy Johnson (a knockout Clarence Williams III), Frank is soon a star peddler of heroin. And he does it the hard way, by cutting out the middlemen, including the mob. He flies to Southeast Asia to buy the junk, smuggles it stateside in the coffins of Vietnam soldiers, bribes police and the military, hires his brothers and cousins to help run his operation, and sits back with his wife no less than Miss Puerto Rico (Lymari Nadal) as the millions roll in from the drug he calls Blue Magic. He even buys his version of Graceland for his good mama (the superb Ruby Dee). No wonder Frank believes in America: The corporate lifestyle of lie-cheat-steal-kill works for him. Frank damn near flies under Richies radar until he breaks conservative form and pimps out by wearing a chinchilla coat and hat (gifts from his wife) to an Ali-Frazier fight. That makes him a target. Who wants him dead most? A rival dealer (Cuba Gooding Jr., returned to form)? A bad cop (Josh Brolin is chillingly good)? A mob boss (Armand Assante doing low sleaze to a high turn) who will never see blacks as paisanos? Its the mobster who tells him, Its success that took a shot at you. Its also race, class, and the absence of truth and justice that currently define the American way. American Gangster isnt all blistering action; it has bite and timely relevance. Frank and Richie are both outsiders playing by rules everyone else ignores. Even Richies crew laughs at him for not pocketing a million bucks in found drug money. But as Richies grip tightens around Frank, the movie closes in for the kill by crosscutting (shades of the Corleones) between a massacre and a church service. The climax also allows Washington and Crowe to finally occupy the screen together. As with Robert De Niro and Al Pacino in Heat, it all comes down to a few pointed words and banked fire in the eyes. Washington and Crowe clash like titans theyre something to see.

Ditto the movie, which goes to the heart of Americas obsession with success as a killer instinct. Thats why the films moral indignation with Frank cant match its fascination with his balls of steel. Superfly and Tony Montana are Hollywood fantasies. Frank is for real. As the real Frank said, People like me. People like the fuck out of me. Maybe thats whats so scary.