The Godfather meets Goodfellas to tell the gripping story of the rise and fall of a black emperor from Harlem in the 70’s. Denzel Washington’s Frank Lucas is set to do what “no fucking nigger’s ever accomplished what American Mafia couldn’t”. Washington is dazzling, and Russell Crowe his nemesis, plays an honest cop in the corrupt world New York law enforcement. Omid Nikfarjam
You got to be fairly cocky to call your film American Gangster; as if it’s the gangster film of films. It isn’t – but it is a well-crafted story, brimming with plenty of classic complex characters, based on the true story of ‘70s Harlem Robin Hood and heroin kingpin, Frank Lucas. I suspect that in spite of Lucas’ failings, Ridley Scott’s depiction makes him a role model more popular than that other American Gangster biding his time in the Whitehouse. JJ
