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The Review - AT THE MOVIES with WILLIAM HALL
Published: 15 November 2007

Gangster Denzel Washington faces tough questions from Russell Crowe

Denzel goes from wheels to deals

AMERICAN GANGSTER
Directed by Ridley Scott
Certificate 18

BASED on fact, this is the cautionary tale of one Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington), making a nice little earner for himself in the 1960s as driver for one of New York’s leading black crime bosses.
He’s a shadow – always there, never noticed.
It’s not a bad place to be when you think of it, at the wheel of a shiny limousine, particularly if you’ve got a mafia boss or a drug baron occupying the back seat. That way you learn things. Keep your eyes on the road, your mouth tight shut, your ears wide open, and mind your own business.
It’s a good living, and Frank finds people tend to talk too freely because he is “only the driver”. He just has to be ready to stamp on the accelerator for a fast getaway if things start getting lively.
That’s until the main man suddenly dies. Now Frank decides to make use of his anonymous years behind the wheel, using contacts, exploiting the opening in the power structure to build his own empire in the drug trade amid the garish clubs of Harlem and downtown Manhattan.
Frank is a clever guy: he persuades his new associates that he can help them “achieve the American dream” – riches beyond their wildest aspirations. His aim is to flood the streets from his base in Harlem with a purer level of heroin than anyone has ever seen.
And his method: smuggling the packets of the raw drug into the country in the coffins of dead American soldiers being returned home from Vietnam. Frank’s alter ego is to become a civic crusader, fêted by those who have no idea of the shady racket this pillar of society is running.
His nemesis arrives in the rumpled shape of Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe), a loner cop with a nose for what’s going on in the street. He senses that someone is climbing the ladder to outflank the mafia families in the battle for power, and Frank is in his sights.
The battle of wits between two unlikely combatants is a fascinating insight into two diverse characters, and Washington in particular carries a heavyweight punch.
Director Ridley Scott adds to the realism with reconstructed settings of Manhattan and Harlem in the 1960s – the streets come alive, and we can feel the hard pavements beneath our own feet as the violent drama is played out.

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