The title refers to Frank Lucas, who controlled a big chunk of the New York heroin trade for the first half of the 1970s. The movie follows two parallel tracks: first the rise of Lucas, played by Denzel Washington; second, the efforts of Ritchie Roberts, played by Russell Crowe, to catch him. This is enjoyable, and the first half is compelling, but somehow it didn’t quite cohere for me.
The good: Denzel (I can’t bring myself to use his last name) is as captivating as usual, and here he is either reined in by Ridley Scott, or reins himself in, so that he never overpowers the movie. Crowe gives another low-key, self-effacing, but powerful performance. There is none of the scenery-chewing, over-blown acting that we got from pretty much everyone except Matt Damon in The Departed. Crowe really seems to bury himself in this role. There are countless nice turns from some superb minor characters (especially Chiwetel Ejiofor, who I could watch forever), though I wanted to see almost all of them given more to do in the movie. The first half recaptures cop movies of that period, and indeed New York City in that period, very effectively. You are back watching The French Connection or Serpico through clouds of cigarette smoke in seedy diners and police station basements. And the rise of Lucas just gives a new twist to a familiar ‘rise of gang boss’ story. Lucas was different from his competitors in the mafia; he dresses, talks and acts like modern, efficient businessman, right up to the moment when he empties a gun into a rival.
The weak: Ridley Scott never gives his actors enough time to really inhabit their characters, to just relax and talk (until a final conversation between Roberts and Lucas). You are always left wanting more. The second half of the movie is too familiar, from every other decline and fall movie. You see it coming too early, and Scott and his screenwriter have nothing terribly new or original to say about it.
Still, this is not a bad movie, and at times (mostly near the beginning) it is exhilarating. But with these two leads and this director, it could have been a classic.
Yeah, not bad but it doesn’t add up to something transcendent (I never felt exhilarated as I did while watching The Departed, but I was engaged and entertained throughout). My favorite scene was in a court room; a showdown between Crowe’s character and his ex-wife (and, of course, you have to love the moment when Denzel shows his brothers who’s the real boss of Harlem). Scott is an interesting director–a journeyman who finds the right style to fit the material–and this film is certainly well-crafted, but he never leaves me enthusiastic as to what he might do next. The final fifth of the film was unexpected, obviously based on truth, but seemingly thrown in from out of nowhere (structurally and in terms of character development). And there are way too many holes in the plot that kept me scratching my head (when, exactly, did Crowe’s character become an assistant district attorney or do police detectives routinely provide opening statements at trial). I’ve read a lot of love being thrown at Cuba Gooding, Jr., but I really have no idea why or to what purpose he was in the film. He had, what, a couple of sluggish scenes but gave off little to no heat. One of my favorite DPs shot the film, Harris Savides, but this is his least interesting film visually (he captures that seventies grit I guess but it feels more like pastiche than anything else; hook that guy back up with van Sant) and that was a disappointment. Just compare AG to Zodiac and perhaps you’ll agree. While it is cool to see a black man beat the white man at his own game, I could find nothing redemable about Frank Lucas whatsover. I could give a shit about the man and my second favorite moment is when he gets bitch slapped by Ruby Dee. Give her an Oscar.
I was thoroughly satisfied by this movie, from the opening moments (which do nothing to prepare us, we’re just thrown right in–there aren’t even any opening credits) to the last. Hot damn, we finally get a scene with both Denzel and Russell, and boy was it worth waiting for.
As for Jeff’s question, I think it’s implied that Richie wants to prosecute his own case (he trusts no one but himself). That’s why takes, and passes, the New Jersey bar. He then switches to defense attorney.
I, too, love the moment between Frank and his mother (Ruby Dee). But bitch slap? I guess you’re joking, Jeff, but that was no bitch slap. It’s the only thing Mama Lucas can do to get through to her son–it’s funny, sweet, and terribly sad all at once.
I say I was thoroughly satisfied by this film, though afterwards some discomforting thoughts came to me–namely, the absence of any real, lengthy, attention paid to the implications of Frank’s business. He loves Harlem, and he wants to do good by it. Turkeys for everyone on Thanksgiving, black pride, family, etc. But heroin? The reason Cuba Gooding, Jr. is in there, I suspect, is to protect Frank’s integrity (for us, for audiences). Nicky Barnes puts the nasty shit out there, the shit that kills. Frank’s stuff is quality. You see? It’s people like Nicky Barnes that kill, not Frank.
Only in the last few moments of the film, when Richie promises he’s got families from Harlem–Frank’s Harlem–lining up to testify against him, is there any acknowledgment of the real problem. Families lining up to testify against Frank…oh really? We never see these people. I guess we’re supposed to know, just know, that of course this is all terrible and people are dying and Frank is a dope dealer. But please, just enjoy the movie, okay? Root for Richie, root for Frank, and enjoy the nachos.
The final shot pretty much says it all. See how Harlem has changed? Gosh, if Frank could’ve stayed out of jail for those fifteen years, Harlem would have been okay. Now, god knows who runs these streets. God knows what nasty junk is being sold.
(Jeff, you didn’t find anything redeemable about Frank? How could you not? The house for mama, the speeches about independence, doing what’s right, the way he keeps order? I know Denzel wanted us to find redeemable qualities in his character…he said so on Oprah!)
You seem to buy wholly into the film’s mythmaking (unless I detect some irony in your words) while I didn’t buy a moment of it (which probably makes me a racist). I see more of the traditional Denzel “type” in Frank’s character than anything else (I prefer his “bad guy” work in Training Day, to be honest; even if that film lacks the scope and scale of this one). Denzel’s Frank is a rational, thinking man’s businessman; nearly everything he does is cool–even chill–and the central moment of transgression (wearing the fur coat) is seen as an aberation–a sentimental miscalculation which can be blamed on a woman’s irrational nature (sure, he’s a narcissist–you blot it, you don’t scrub it–but his narcissism is too easily countered by Cuba Gooding Jr’s all too brief appearances in the film). As for Gooding, he’s putting heavily cut heroin on the market and trying to pass it off as the blue star brand; it certainly isn’t as good as Denzel’s but it doesn’t leave the streets reeling from a larger body count either. And the end of the film is still problematic for me, because Denzel suddenly becomes something of a hero (he’s actually giving us that Denzel smile as he helps the cops put the Josh Brolins of this world away). I didn’t buy it; it smacked of Hollywood liberalism at it’s worst. And, yeah, that final shot. I didn’t read it as an “if only” moment but more of an ironic moment. Black culture (and black entrepreneurship) owns the city streets, but the film knowingly trades on the more insidious forms of hip-hop narratives (Frank was gangsta before gangsta was gangsta; as if he wouldn’t have figured that out behind bars). I liked the film primarily for the Russel Crowe sequences. I didn’t necessarily root for him, but I thought the writing and the acting was far stronger on that side of the fence.
I think there’s an explicit indication that Gooding’s stuff has killed. We see a montage of overdoses, then we go directly to the scene where Frank confronts Nicky. I agree it doesn’t leave the streets reeling from a larger body count, but my point is that we never see the body count from Frank’s stuff, nor do we see those families whose lives are ruined by Blue Magic. We see only those lives destroyed by Nicky’s inferior brand.
I don’t buy into the mythology any more than you do, but I was trying to point out some of the mechanisms with which the film is drawing us into it. Yes, please see irony in my words. “You see? It’s people like Nicky Barnes that kill” and “But please, just enjoy the movie”–that’s not me speaking, to you or anyone. That’s the film speaking to us. Sorry for the lack of clarity there. Guess I should’ve put quotation marks on those lines.
I too thoroughly enjoyed the film. It didn’t disrupt my expectations or thrill as thoroughly as others, but I’m with John about how consistently entertained I was.
I pipe up for a couple details. First, I *do* think Frank is demystified; that montage of overdoses you mentioned, John, is intercut with Frank’s Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving, and throughout the movie we often see junkies in dire straits (often as Frank watches, too) — clearly, as Crowe’s Richie later says, his product/business is enormously destructive. (Nicky’s stuff was cut from Frank’s level of purity–I’m not sure how it would get to overdoses, since it’s LESS pure. Whereas Richie first becomes aware of Blue Magic when his former partner od’s on it.) Further, I think Lucas is played with a cold fury–there are moments where he’s enormously unlikeable.
I think the film was rock-solid without being rip-roaring. I was most impressed by the writing (the often great Steven Zaillian), how efficiently the story–particularly in the first half–is told, with such range and depth, without much exposition.
All of the above is ironic.
The preceding sentence is ironic.
My whole life is in quotations.
i found this terribly slow and, frankly, a bit boring. i get all you guys say, yet, well, it took us days to finish watching it. couldn’t it have been cut by a third? i think we get the complexity of frank’s situation (i agree with everything mike says: not benevolent at all, just self-serving, but with a sort of self-righteous angle to it) within minutes. why all the scenes with his wife, all his trips to vietnam, etc. etc.? biopics sometime get self-indulgent with details. if i had watched this in the theatre, i would have had to walk out.
Gio, I think I agree, sort of. It’s overlong–and, while I found the glut of information was handled with some style, it was a glut of information. I think you’re right that it’s a biopic failing, pushing verisimilitude through a flurry of details that may not be wholly crucial to the dynamics of the plot. But maybe I came at it as a fan of these kinds of pics, who found the information (like the glut of statistics baseball announcers will often provide their audience) part of the pleasure… even if the game/film wasn’t particularly epic or as Jeff says transcendent.
we watched this tonight. eh. i agree that frank lucas’ myth is undercut throughout the film (all those ugly shots of junkies, the casual, ruthless brutality) but i don’t know what the hell the last 20-25 minutes were about. suddenly frank becomes a good guy for being cooperative? and he never heard about starbucks or nike while he was in jail?
cinematically, this, like a lot of ridley scott’s recent stuff, looks good and is professionally made, but is mostly dull. and it’s bloated. too many unnecessary chases and whatnot which take up time that could have been better spent underlining some of the more interesting questions the film avoids about race etc..
hoodlum, with laurence fishburne as bumpy johnson, is a much better film. uninterestingly, the actor who plays bumpy johnson in this one plays one of johnson’s rivals in that one.
Those of us who have early memories of the TV distortions of the “counterculture” know “the actor” Arnab refers to is Clarence Williams III, or “Link” from The Mod Squad . I remember the show fondly though I’m sure I would think it sucks if I saw it now. if you are drudging the depths of cable TV, you will now see Clarence as the sidekick on Hallmark’s Mystery Woman .
Solid.