If you walked into this movie expecting a great performance from Denzel Washington, you wouldn’t get disappointed, nor would the support cast, especially Russel Crowe, who brought so much toughness into this film. This is a biopic about Frank Lucas (Washington), who took control of the drug trade and ran Harlem along with his family within the palm of his hands during the Vietnam War.
To categorize the movie as a gangster movie does not do this movie justice, there are too many other elements, such as a business model, cutting out the middlemen, establishing brand strength, (even though to see the business model, you have to remember to forget that it was drug-trafficking.) The movie started with the death of Bumpy Johnson and moved along his driver (Washington), who went directly to Southeast Asia to get the cheap, pure drugs and supply them to the entire East Coast while an incorruptible cop (Crowe), who turned down a million dollars twice, was determined to take Lucas down. All the while a corrupt cop (Josh Brolin in his third or fourth good movie this year) was making life difficult for both of them.
Consider this scene in which the Washington character goes out from a diner and asks a subordinate drug dealer for money. The latter refuses, Washington pulls out a pistol and shot him in the head in the middle of the street. He then returned to the diner to finish breakfast and resume talking to his family. A lesser director would have used this scene for pure shock effect. But Ridley Scott had been making movies for too long to allow this to happen. Yes, it is a shocking scene, but he used this scene to give his central character more depth, and give us a much better understanding of what kind of person Frank Lucas was.
The film features two impeccable performances from Denzel Washington and Russel Crowe, the latter reunites with Scott after the under-exposed “A Good Year” and the extraordinarily popular but boring “Gladiator.” Perhaps everyone who watched this film realize that a final confrontation between the two men would be inevitable, and what a scene it was between the two men. They sit face to face, each trying to get the most out of the other, the detail of their conversation I will not reveal, but it was definitely the highlight of the film.
As much as I like the movie, it has one key flaw. It builds up the Crowe character as a man dedicated to his job only and forgets his family. Well then, maybe Ridley Scott should not have shown any scenes of the Crowe character’s family in the first place. Besides, the wife story only distracted from the core of the film. This is one of the best films of Scott’s career, backed up by two beautiful performances. I would not be surprised if either one of them snatch the lead and support actor Oscars away.
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