American Gangster

Director: Ridley Scott

Starring: Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe, Chiwetel Ejiofor

Ridley Scott’s American Gangster depicts the rise of drug-lord Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington) in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. Lucas realises that astronomical profit margins may be obtained by cutting out the middle-men in the drug trade and ships heroin directly from Vietnam via coffins. He is disciplined in maintaining the quality of his product, ‘Blue Magic’, creates an infrastructure dominated by blood relatives and refrains from the excesses in clothing that many other gangsters of the period embraced. Informing his brother Huey (Chiwetel Ejiofor) that, ‘The loudest in the room is the weakest one in the room’, Lucas sticks with understated suits to avoid police attention and cultivate his business, unlike the egomaniacal Nicky Barnes (Cuba Gooding Jr.).

Juxtaposing Lucas is the ragged Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe), the cop invited to tackle the increasingly damaging drug problem in New York. Coaxed into working for the ‘feds’, Roberts recruits reliable cops to aid his investigation in discovering who are behind the increasingly damaging drug problem. Once Lucas is identified, Roberts is convinced that Frank Lucas is not the top-dog, assuming that the godfather of Harlem is dependent upon an Italian mob boss. He underestimates Lucas’ worth, and with the corrupt Detective Trupo (Josh Brolin) obstructing his operation, it is only a matter of time before Lucas’ cool demeanour is severely tested.

Steven Zaillian’s script juxtaposes the protagonists in parallel narratives, denying them a face to face meet until over 80 minutes in. An emphasis is placed upon character ambiguity throughout, with parallels employed to blur the distinction between hero and villain. This characterisation benefits from the 2 hour 37 minute running time, whilst the production design and cinematography are triumphant. Ridley Scott stated that, ‘Creating the environment excites me most when making a movie’, and it is evident that the veteran of sci-fi classic Alien (1979) has an equally detailed eye for perfection in American Gangster. Each scene successfully evokes the period of the early 1970’s, yet never seems obtrusive.

Traditionally, the gangster genre is founded upon the individualist capitalistic aspirations of working-class immigrants with a ‘rags to riches’ mentality. From The Godfather to Scarface, the striving towards success via the mythical ‘American Dream’ has been of paramount importance, and it is from this tradition that Frank Lucas emanates. Scott also successfully draws upon visual references from the history of the genre in order to emphasise its categorisation. Allusions to The Godfather and ‘blaxploitation’ classics such as Black Caesar and Across 110th Street are made through both visual and audio references. American Gangster is therefore founded upon great tradition, and is both an homage to many a classic and an entertaining piece in its own right.

James Cotton