2007 was a great year--a mere two months after we adopted Roy, our handsome French Bulldog, American Gangster was released. My favorite among Ridley Scott's directorial triumphs, beating out Alien, Blade Runner and Gladiator for the title, this film is an absolute masterpiece. As you may have surmised from my post on Luther last fall, I have a raging crush on Idris Elba. You may then wonder how I could be so enamored of a movie in which his character is unceremoniously shot in the head and left splayed out and bleeding on a Harlem sidewalk. The answer is that it's all right, because Denzel Washington is the shooter. Oh, Denzel.
Denzel’s Frank Lucas is a king in a court of thieves, a businessman dependent on junkies, gangsters and peacocks. An innovative drug dealer, Frank trumps his competitors with “a product that’s better than the competition at a price that’s lower than the competition.” He manages such a feat through familial connection—his cousin in the Army—that allows him to traffic heroin from an eerie Vietnamese plantation reminiscent of Colonel Kurtz’s territory to JFK Airport on military planes, in the coffins of fallen soldiers. When Frank’s trademark “Blue Magic” finally infiltrates Harlem (in tins of powdered baby formula, a harrowing image), brand loyalty and mass overdosing ensue.
Cornering the heroin market despite countless deaths by the superpotent drug, Frank rises from gangster's driver to American Gangster after his beloved boss dies and he finally puts his own entrepreneurial spirit to work. But Frank is slated to become something more than his employer Bumpy Johnson ever could, because Bumpy “never owned his own company. White man owned it, so they owned him,” he explains to his brothers/new business partners on an edifying stroll through Harlem (during which he lays Idris out right in front of the entire neighborhood). As a black man in the heroin trade, Frank is a true pioneer, forcing notoriously racist Mafiosos to bow to him to make a profit, baffling bigoted Feds who cannot even countenance Richie’s idea of Frank as a drug superpower.
The only reason the meticulous, endlessly responsible Frank even pops up on Richie's radar is because Frank is too easily threatened by Richie’s investigation of the deadly Blue Magic. Through Richie’s mafia-mired close friend Joey Sadano (played to perfection by Ritchie Coster), Frank offers the nosy detective a massive ski chalet in Aspen because he is fully accustomed to bribing crooked DEA agents. Unfortunately for Frank and his empire, Richie is the most honest, most curious cop in the tri-state area, so Joey’s desperate warning to “leave Frank Lucas alone” only piques Richie’s interest in the name. It doesn’t help that Frank’s well-meaning wife gives him a garish mink coat with matching hat, which he wears quite uncomfortably to a highly publicized prizefight. It is precisely this kind of attention-grabbing gangster attire that Frank avoids, even slaps his brother around for wearing, because his only ambition greater than success is anonymity. But out of obligation to his wife, he keeps the whole outfit on as he takes the best seats in the house and rouses the watchful Richie’s attention. Had he just followed his own rules, he might have run Harlem forever; but as happens so often in this film, Frank’s perilous devotion to family puts his business in danger. (It is impossible not to empathize with him on this point, though—Ruby Dee as Mama Lucas is hands down the most adorable yet commanding mother ever realized on the screen.)
While Frank does suffer at the hands of justice, his downfall is only semi-permanent because he takes his tormentors with him. Identifying every crooked, blackmailing, bribe-snatching cop led by the iniquitous Detective Trupo (a supremely hateful, mustachioed Josh Brolin) who shot his dog, Frank catalyzes the prosecution of an outrageous 75% of New York DEA. Consequently, his 70-year prison sentence is brought down to a mere 15, after which only a few gray hairs and a dated suit suggest Frank has missed a beat. Despite the fact that he is a drug dealer, despite the proliferation of graphic overdose scenes, despite our first introduction to Frank, when he lights a man on fire before shooting him to death, we root for Frank. We have no choice--he is too inspiring, too self-made, his motivations are too noble and his success too unlikely, his will too strong and his enemies too deplorable for us to wish him anything but greatness. My heart leaps out of my chest when he steps out of prison and reveals to Richie that he could recapture the Harlem drug trade in a moment, and I’m not entirely ashamed to say I wish he would.
~ Natasha Hirschfeld
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