American Gangster

NEW YORK (CNS) -- "American Gangster" (Universal) is a gritty, chaotically filmed true-life story set in Vietnam War-era 1970s New York.

New Jersey cop Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe) is so scrupulously honest that when he finds a million dollars in a car trunk he turns it in to the derision of those on both sides of the law. His personal life is less upstanding, however, and his wife, Laurie (Carla Gugino), is leaving him for his constant womanizing.

When recruited by the feds for a drug investigation, his search leads to notorious drug kingpin Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington), once the apprentice and driver of Harlem crime boss Ellsworth "Bumpy" Johnson (Clarence Williams III), whose sudden death had led Lucas to build his own empire.

Lucas is shipping heroin from Thailand to the States in Vietnam soldiers' body bags, all the while posing as an upstanding family man. Lucas' gang, dubbed the Country Boys, is in fact, comprised of relatives from North Carolina, where Lucas grew up in poverty. It includes Lucas' brothers, Huey (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and Turner (rapper Common), and nephew Stevie (hip-hop artist T.I.). Frank brings them north and, along with his mother (Ruby Dee), sets them up in a sprawling mansion in Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.

Before long, Lucas falls for and marries a former Miss Puerto Rico, Eve (Lymari Nadal), who accepts her husband's criminal doings without question.

Their mostly female workers cut Lucas' Blue Magic heroin (as he trademarks it), in the nude, presumably to prevent them from stealing it. The end product is purer and cheaper than that of the competition.

Neither Roberts' colleagues nor the Narcotics Special Investigations Unit, headed by corrupt detective Trupo (Josh Brolin), believe Roberts' claim that a black man could be masterminding such a grand operation, the kind they usually associate with the Italian Mafia.

Even if the film doesn't really break any new ground, director Ridley Scott and scriptwriter Steven Zaillian make an interesting juxtaposition of the prosperous criminal and the struggling hero, and capture the tumultuous era's spirit, though Harris Savides' hand-held camerawork is sometimes too busy.

Crowe and Washington are in confident form, and there's good work from Cuba Gooding Jr. as Lucas' rival, Nicky Barnes; Armand Assante as Mafioso Dominic Cattano; and veteran Dee, who gets to upbraid her son in one particularly good scene.

The filmmakers seem to take pains not to glorify Lucas by showing what a cold-blooded killer he could be, as when he calmly leaves his restaurant table to walk across the street and shoot a man in the head.

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Despite a moderately redemptive ending, the squalid milieu and strong violence of this ugly perversion of the American dream will not be to everyone's taste, but the stranger-than-fiction story certainly holds your interest.

The film contains pervasive rough language and profanity, racial epithets, upper female nudity, adultery, a graphic sexual encounter without nudity, violence, murder, suicide, brief torture and drug dealing. The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is L -- limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is R -- restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.

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Copyright (c) 2007 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops