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Last Updated: May 30th, 2008 - 11:49:13 |
“American Gangster” turns out to be not that “gangsta” at all—and we should all be glad.
Director Ridley Scott’s account of the life of Harlem drug kingpin Frank Lucas is gritty and fast-paced, covering a wide swath of geography and history—from the 1960’s into the 1970’s, and from Northern New Jersey to Southeast Asia. But while some sequences are violent, reflecting the ruthlessness of the heroin trade, most of the story is not a glamorization filled with blazing guns, fancy cars and coochie galore. It is not “Scarface” or even “Superfly,” the iconic film figure often compared to Lucas.
It is also not a chocolate version of the Corleone mystique. Black America has waited a long time for its Black “Godfather” and he comes bound by a script that emphasizes the White cop out to get him, played by Russell Crowe, as much as it does the Black outlaw Lucas, played by Denzel Washington. As a matter of fact, I think “American Gangster” could be very well titled “American Cop.”
The cat-and-mouse aspect of the film keeps it closer to realism than to flash but diverts attention away from what could have been a deeper immersion into the life and character of one of Harlem’s wealthiest and most ruthless drug dealers. As it stands, it seems that Washington—who will never be denied his screen presence—is given little with which to work. Lucas is delivered as a somewhat wooden man, who could kill on a drop of a dime, yet, in the manner of his mentor Ellsworth “Bumpy” Johnson, could also give away free turkeys at Thanksgiving. The Puerto Rican beauty queen he marries, played by Lymari Nadal, is rendered almost mute and doll-like in the film, while we see and hear more of the White cop’s ex-wife and girlfriend, who laugh, cry, smile, curse, have sex, as well as take part in other human activities. The promising ensemble of actors surrounding Washington, including Chiwetel Ejiofor and the rappers Common and T.I., are limited by the script in creating a presence and persona for their characters.
As is the case with many of Scott's movies, action is what is present in “American Gangster.” Instead of obligatory cheesy action, there is close-up action of dying and death in Harlem due to heroin addiction. These bleak, haunting images are frequently intertwined with those of Lucas (Washington), so that we won’t forget the two are connected.
So “American Gangster” makes sure that we know Frank Lucas is no American hero, even with some sort of twisted ghetto logic. At the same time, however, it articulates what many Harlemites felt in admiring him: that he was a Black man who grew wealthy from a hustle—designed to dump drugs in Harlem and in other Black neighborhoods—that was in place long before him; that he beat traditional drug importers (The Italian Mafia) at their game by importing his own pure heroin; that he lived large, very large—to the tune of at least $250 million confiscated by the federal government; and that he brought down scores of (White) corrupt police officers, whose warped definition of law enforcement included guns, badges and brown bags filled with dirty money.
In this story, most of Lucas’s adversaries are White, with the exception of Leroy “Nicky” Barnes” depicted brilliantly in a bit part by Cuba Gooding, Jr., so Lucas’s success is given some underpinnings of race pride. We root for a man who learned, as a Black boy growing up in North Carolina, that White police officers are not on his side. (This is the history, our saga, that is missing from this, our "Godfather." It doesn't even appear in a flashback.) Of course, we root for Denzel. We want to root for him, even though he is a pusher—and gangster—of death.
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