Neo-noir 'Gangster' treads gray area between good and evil
"American Gangster" -- in which Denzel Washington plays suave, real-life Harlem drug lord Frank Lucas, and Russell Crowe portrays Richie Roberts, the chubby New Jersey prosecutor tracking him down -- wafts us back to a time when the streets were meaner and movies were better: the 1970s.
What an era that was! The incandescent movie decade, when ambitious, intellectual and rebellious classics such as the first two "Godfather" films, "Mean Streets," "Apocalypse Now," "The French Connection," "The Deer Hunter" and "Serpico" came at us thick and fast, is repeatedly evoked in Ridley Scott's new neo-noir epic.
Most of those films are recalled in Scott's movie, whose nickname during the shoot was "Superfly Meets Serpico." I wouldn't say "Gangster" is always worthy of that company, but the fact that Scott and writer Steve Zaillian aim for those targets deserves praise.
So does the movie. Based on a New York Magazine article, it tells the double-stranded story of two men: Frank Lucas, a poor kid from North Carolina who combined business/street savvy, a strict personal ethic and a priceless East Asian heroin source to rise to the pinnacle of the Big Apple's illegal drug world; and Richie Roberts, a good cop who became a pariah among many of his fellows for turning in a suitcase packed with a million dollars in unmarked bills instead of keeping it, as most of them would have.
As in Michael Mann's 1995 "Heat," "Gangster" juggles and juxtaposes those two stories, granting both Washington's Frank and Crowe's Richie nearly equal time, with a single dynamic collision between them. Throughout, the movie balances Frank's outwardly enviable, inwardly obscene rise to riches against Richie's lower-case existence as a haplessly honest cop and dishonest husband.
So we see Frank in lush environs, hobnobbing with the rich and famous, enjoying ringside seats with his Puerto Rican beauty queen wife Eva (Lymari Nadal) at the first Ali-Frazier fight. And we also spy Richie's family life disintegrating as he scours streets full of addicts and killers, mostly Frank's victims and agents. A crook with "respectable" wealth and a cop with a bad home life: This weird contrast brings out the double edge of the American Dream, which can celebrate scoundrels with money and power -- as long as they dress and act the part.
Just like the courtly Vito and Michael Corleone in "The Godfather," Frank displays a seemingly good exterior, undermined when Scott cuts to scenes of drug-induced carnage and misery (as in one devastating montage to Sam and Dave's "Hold On, I'm Coming") or when Frank suddenly, scarily explodes in fits of violence, setting men afire or repeatedly slamming an employee's head with a grand piano lid.
The production around these two guys is meticulously detailed, impressively vast -- and Scott, a visual master, gives "Gangster" some of the gusty energy and drive of his smaller, jazzier thriller "Thelma & Louise." Washington, meanwhile, endows Frank with all the outward charm and inward chill the part needs. Crowe makes Richie another of his off-type smart doofus roles (as in "The Insider"), and the deep, excellent supporting cast includes Chiwetel Ejiofor as Frank's more fallible brother, Josh Brolin as a particularly bad cop and Ted Levine as Richie's supportive boss.
A special bow is due to the great Ruby Dee, who plays Frank's Mama. In one magnificent scene, she vents all the moral anger and disapproval of Frank's "business" some carpers might see lacking elsewhere.
Are those potential carpers right? Are Scott and Zaillian too uncritical? Are they shallowly glorifying Frank as a minority winner besting the rich white capitalist/crooks at their own game? And is there too much of Richie?
Those are understandable feelings. Washington carries immense star cache even in his villain roles ("Training Day"), and Lucas himself consulted on the film and was sometimes present on the set.
But perhaps we're too used to crime movies that, unlike those '70s classics, give us pure, unmixed good and evil. If Frank is shown as a "good" family man (with one scene even evoking Norman Rockwell) and if Richie is a philanderer, dumped by his wife (Carla Gugino), that simply means this movie has more respect than most for the ironies of real life.
And in that life, as the movie shows us, Frank confused people too, finally winning one tribute from a most unlikely source. "American Gangster" not only recalls the great violent movie triumphs of the '70s; it exposes some of the bizarre contradictions that lay beneath them.
"American Gangster"Three stars out of fourOpens todayDenzel Washington as Frank LucasRussell Crowe as Richie RobertsChiwetel Ejiofor as Huey LucasJosh Brolin as TrupoTed Levine as Lou TobackRuby Dee as Mama LucasWritten by Steve Zaillian. Produced by Brian Grazer and Ridley Scott. Directed by Ridley Scott. A Universal Pictures release. Rated R (violence, drug use, language, nudity and sexual situations). Running time: 157 minutes.