I went with my wife to see American Gangster today. I have some random thoughts that are somewhat of a spoiler, so you are duly warned.
Brief Background: For those that do not know, the movie is about Frank Lucas and the New Jersey cop who brought him down. Frank Lucas, in the early 1970’s was the most powerful black man ever to come into the drug trade, which until that time, was controlled by the Italian Mob in NY. Frank decided to go around the middle men (mafia) and import his drugs directly from SE Asia by making contacts through his military cousin and some locals. He imported nearly pure heroin and sold it for half market price. This made him very powerful and hated as he netted over 1 million a day in 1972. He was eventually brought down and took a lot of mafia and corrupt NYC police with him (about 3/4 of the narcotics special division of the NYPD). Frank is still alive today. Only serving a few years, after turning state’s evidence, and then 15 years on another charge.
1) Being that it was 3 hours long I don’t think they spent enough time on things that really showed Frank Lucas develop as a person. Instead they spent way too much time on Russel Crow’s character. I will get back to that in a second.
The movie was not like Godfather or Scarface, unlike the former two movies, Frank Lucas is a living human being and his life story is quite interesting. I think the issue was marketing.
If you didn’t have a lead white protagonist and just had him as an accessory and went into a lot of detail about Lucas’ character it would have been a “black film” and therefore not made as much money at the box office as most whites would not watch it. This is AMERICA. Hollywood is capitalist and America still racially self-segregates.
I read a little about Lucas before I went to see the film. He grew up poor in North Carolina during Jim Crow (1930’s) where he witnessed his cousin’s head getting blown off by the KKK in their yard after a home invasion. This is mentioned in the movie, but never shown. It would have been a powerful scene to show a young Frank Lucas witnessing this. This could have been shown as the critical event leading to his long life as a sociopath, because this what he was/is (I will say).
It would have also been interesting to see why he went to Harlem during the Renaissance. How he met Bumpy Johnson, the most respected and notorious criminal in Harlem. Bumpy was so famous that various white and black celebrities and politicians attended his funeral, despite the fact he was a mafia associate and a kingpin in Harlem. Bumpy was a father-figure to Frank, which the movie makes obvious, however, it could have shown more about their relationship.
It would have also been interesting to show that Frank Lucas had at least 6 children and he was illiterate. He would weigh his money to figure out how much he had. This makes him even more impressive, when you consider he was making over a million dollars a day, created an international drug smuggling ring (that cut out the middle men and went right to the source in SE Asia) and all while not being able to read the newspaper. The film even showed him several times reading a paper in his favorite dinner in the film, which is false. It would have been interesting if he did do this to look sophisticated to others, as he cared himself in a dapper way, as opposed to “Super Fly-like”.
At one time he even put out a hit on his own brother. What was that about? Movie doesn’t even mention it. Could have easily been a Michael/Fredo type Godfather scene, but…nope.
2) I did like the fact that it did not show him as a very sympathetic although he was human. The film constantly reminds the audience of the damage Frank was doing in and outside of Harlem. Whenever movies like this come out, I fear it is just racial black thug acting animalistic propaganda. If you do not know what I’m talking about, watch BET, and half the “black movies” that came out in the 1990’s…anything created by Viacom…etc. That is another story for another time though.
3) Overall I thought the movie was enjoyable, although I could have waited till DVD. I will say that the entire time I was watching the movie, I kept thinking (like 3 or 4 times) that Frank Lucas was highly intelligent. Very few people of any race could do what he did in 1970 in New York, given the resources he had to work with. This man was a criminal, but also a super entrepreneur. If he had not grown up poor and black in the Jim Crow South I wonder what he would have accomplished? I’m sure a lot more than 1 million a day. The very fact he was black made him enemies all by itself.
4) I liked that the movie showed there were really not many “good guys”. The world was not black and white. It was shades of gray. Most of the cops in the movies were highly corrupt. Lucas was obviously bad, the mafia, a lot of politicians, etc. They all knew what Lucas was, what the mafia was and played ball to get money. In fact, Russel Crow’s character remarks that he was starting not to believe anyone really wanted to end drug abuse, because it was so profitable and employed too many people; this includes the IRS, judges, etc.
5) Funniest thing is Frank Lucas and the cop (now defense attorney) who busted him are good friends and he has represented Frank, so I wonder how “uncorrupted” he really was. Here is the real Frank Lucas and the cop that took him down: 
6) Final verdict: I give it a “B”. It will not be a “cult classic”. I believe the director should have been someone else, and the script should have been heavily revised to build up the character since this was a “one shot deal” and not a bunch of sequels like Godfather, this could have at least made it as involved as Scareface.
In the end, I think Frank Lucas was shown how he was, from what i read about him. Very personable, highly intelligent, respectful, disciplined, socio-pathic, murder, who poisoned his own community to get rich. This is an American story as much as, if not more than, Godfather. A story about real Laissez-faire Capitalism.
[...] serving a few years, after turning state’s evidence, and then 15 years on another charge. More… American Gangster Review? « The Postnational Monitor __________________ My Site: http://pmsol3.wordpress.com/ “Weakness is Provocative” –Secretary [...]
Oh yeah…something else I found interesting was that Lucas’ cousin made contacts with who he called the KMT, Chiang Kai Shek’s defeated army.
For China buffs, we know he is talking about what was left of the Guo Ming Dong (KMT ) who didn’t make it to Taiwan. It appears that some of them made it to Southeast Asia and served as “muscle” for some Nanyang Chinese who were already running the drug trade or they just went into business for themselves. Does anyone know any history on that?
Here is a picture of Frank Lucas and his wife, Julie Lucas (former Miss Puerto Rico):
http://www.accessatlanta.com/movies/content/movies/stories/2007/11/02/Gangster_1103.html
Frank and his wife are still married according to Frank Lucas’ interview with Star Jackson on Court T.V. During that interview, Lucas mentioned that Robbins, the cop who eventually busted him, became godfather to one of his children and helped one of Lucas’ children get into a prep school when Lucas was in prison.
Lucas claimed they went from being adversaries to friends during the time when Robbins was involved in bringing down the corrupt cops with Lucas’ information.
BTW, I had no idea he was illiterate. Kind of makes his achievements, such as they were, even more exceptional.
G-Man:
Yeah, like I said, the man has issues, serious ones, but no one can say he was some street corner hood. He is highly intelligent. Not everyone can work around not being able to read and write and still run a international smuggling ring.
I was also not satisfied with the song at the end when Frank got out of prison…”Can’t Trust It” by Public Enemy? What?
Naw…
Should have played “LapDance” by N.E.R.D.
That would have been tight. That’s nit picky…I know.
COMMENTARY: Drug Dealer Frank Lucas, Denzel and Dad
My Father as a kid delivered groceries to the first drug kingpin “Bumpy” Johnson, who at the time, lived in the corner building on 120th street and 5th Avenue, across the street from Mount Morris Park. He use to tell me these colorful stories with admiration, about this man. Bumpy was an employee and conduit for the mafia, helping to orchestrate the distribution of heroin into Harlem and surrounding communities in the 1940’s, an epidemic that would later spread and engulf the entire country for generations to come.
The street gangs of the 40’s would become some of the first addicts, their members would ultimately form the first ruthless drug-gangs of the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s. Families were destroyed individual lives ruined, violence and crime across the board increased at staggering rates. In spite the gains from the Civil Rights Movement, as a community we never fully recovered from the initial impact of the flooding of drugs into our communities.
Frank Lucas, portrayed by academy Award winner Denzel Washington in “American Gangster”, was the driver for Bumpy Johnson until his death by heart attack in 1968. By the time Mr. Lucas took power- the Harlem community had been decimated by this epidemic and the second generation of addicts already overwhelmed the streets. Like the Hip Hop culture violent movies have a tremendous impact on our children. Our young-people are continually bombarded with negative messages that unfortunately help shape and mold their character, Al Pacino’s as Scareface is still a popular image on T-Shirts.
The moral of the story is not that the bad guy gets it in the end. Too many hopeless kids who are engaged in criminal activity, view the demise of these individuals in a fatalistic and morbidly glamorous way. Enlighten by our past history and current events we have to be careful not to glorify criminals. Mr. Lucas has the right to have his story told but as parents, mentors, big brothers and sisters, we must always monitor the messages and more important the response to the message portrayed in media.
Dad’s discussions about Bumpy, were a small part of the rich history of the community that he shared with me. He gave me, as I did my son, Claude Brown’s definitive book on life in Harlem, “Manchild in the Promise Land”, when I was a teenager. He also talked about Malcolm X and Dr. King, Miles Davis and Charlie Parker. Together we watched, Gil Noble’s informative program “Like It Is”. My love of history and current events came from my dads talks about the Bumpy Johnson’s as well as the Dr. King’s of this world. He taught me to discern the messages that would bombarded me in my life-time. He knew then that no matter what, there would always be plenty of people like Bumpy Johnson and Frank Lucas around to share theirs.
Brotherman
Gosta:
“Too many hopeless kids who are engaged in criminal activity, view the demise of these individuals in a fatalistic and morbidly glamorous way. ”
That is something I did not think of. I’m African American, but I did not grow up in that type of environment and I never thought that people would glamourize “going out hardcore” as idealistic or preferable to other alternatives, that level of fatalism is somewhat foreign to me. Then again, though I have been desperate to move “upward”, I have never been so desperate as to consider illegal activities to accomplish my goals, actually my goals can’t be accomplished illegally (in in a “hood” sense).