As a teenager visiting Harlem, Denzel Washington never came across drug lord Frank Lucas in person. Yet Washington saw the human wreckage that Lucas helped create.
“There were junkies everywhere. The neighborhood was destroyed by people like Frank Lucas,” Washington says of the man he plays in “American Gangster,” which opens Friday.
“American Gangster” is both a crime drama and a portrait of an era. Directed by Ridley Scott from Steven Zaillian’s screenplay, the film weaves together the Vietnam War, the civil-rights movement, modern-day empire building and the emergence of gangsta style. The film’s entrepreneurs peddle a heroin called Blue Magic.
It’s all inspired by a true story.
The movie follows Lucas’ rise and eventual fall, which was hastened by the dogged efforts of Detective Richie Roberts, who is played by Oscar-winner Russell Crowe. Zaillian’s screenplay contrasts Lucas, a drug dealer with an exemplary family life, with Roberts, an honest cop who cheated repeatedly on his wife.
“There’s not a clear, singular morality,” Crowe says. “And that’s nothing more than reality as humanity exists.”
Washington was more than happy to delve into Lucas’ duality.
“Frank Lucas is a very interesting man,” Washington says. “He had no formal education, but he was a brilliant student. He was very much a family man, believed in sitting down, like at Thanksgiving, and all that. But he was in the drug business. He didn’t look at himself as a killer or even a criminal. He was in a business, and he sold a product — and he did a good job of it.”
By buying and importing heroin directly from Thailand, Burma and Laos — sometimes inside American soldiers’ coffins returning from Vietnam — Lucas was able to generate staggering profits of up to a million dollars a day.
“I just thought the story was unique — that a semi-literate guy from North Carolina could go to Southeast Asia and navigate his way through that world,” says “Gangster” producer Brian Grazer. “He was so elusive. What he did blew my mind.”
Washington, who typically is seen playing crusading winners in movies such as “Remember the Titans” and “Inside Man,” likes playing the occasional baddie, as he did in director Antoine Fuqua’s “Training Day.” The role won him a best actor Oscar.
“You can say anything, you can do anything. Bad guys are fun,” Washington says.
But there was more to Lucas than a one-dimensional villain.
“He wasn’t well-educated, but you see how intelligent Frank is — I mean street-smart,” says Washington, who spent considerable time with Lucas during filming and describes him now as a “small, broken man, out of his element.”
“He took an extremely risky chance going all the way to Southeast Asia. And it took him a couple of months to make a connection,” Washington says, noting that the time is compressed in the movie. “He was running a Fortune 500 company from the street.”
Yet Washington only agreed to play Lucas if the film showed him being punished.
“We had to see him pay,” Washington says. “I like to think I have a moral compass. I don’t want to play a bad guy just for the sake of it. There have to be moral consequences.”
Washington nevertheless worries that some people may see Lucas as more role model than cautionary tale. “Absolutely, I’m concerned about that.”
Once a crime boss, Lucas eventually is undone not only by Roberts’ dogged pursuit but also by his own pride. Lucas was sentenced to 70 years in prison in 1976, but was released five years later after providing evidence that led to the convictions of numerous law enforcement officials and drug criminals. Lucas returned to prison for seven years on drug charges in 1984.
“It’s a cliche, but it’s true. Frank said to me, ‘Denzel, I should have gotten out. I had enough money. I tried to retire … But it was the life,’ ” Washington says.
“It’s like boxers who get back in the ring, even though they shouldn’t, and get their brains knocked out,” Washington says. “They need the high — no pun intended.”
Today, Lucas is wheelchair-bound, living, as Zaillian puts it, “hand-to-mouth.” Both he and Roberts served as consultants on the movie. For his trouble, producer Grazer and Washington bought Lucas a house.
“He went above and beyond our contract, and we wanted to help him out,” Grazer says. “He doesn’t have any money. In a way, it’s sort of a sad story because he was such an underdog. Of course, you can’t justify what he did.”
Adds Crowe: “If Frank Lucas had been befriended by somebody else and had an education in a different area, there might be universities named after him.”
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MOB MENTALITY
Audiences’ love affair with gangster movies began more than a century ago with 1906’s “The Black Hand: True Story of a Recent Occurrence in the Italian Quarter of New York,” considered the earliest surviving movie dealing with the Mafia. The latest installment in the genre is Ridley Scott’s “American Gangster.” Here are some memorable gangster movies and how much money they made in U.S. theaters.
[ L.A. TIMES, REDEYE ]The Godfather series
Part I: 1972, $135 million
Part II: 1974, $47.5 million
Part III: 1990, $66.7 million
Francis Ford Coppola’s Oscar-winning saga about the Italian mob family of Don Corleone is memorable for Marlon Brando’s performance as Corleone (above) and Al Pacino’s take on his son, Michael.
The Departed
2006, $132.4 million
Boston boss Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson) sends undercover operative Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) to infiltrate the police just as cop Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio, above) infiltrates the mob in Martin Scorsese’s violent Oscar winner.
The Untouchables
1987, $76.3 million
Sean Connery and Kevin Costner use “the Chicago way” to battle Robert De Niro’s Al Capone in the shot-in-Chicago classic.
Bugsy
1991, $49 million
Warren Beatty turns on the charm as the handsome mobster Bugsy Siegel, who is known as the Father of Las Vegas.
GoodFellas
1990, $46.8 million
Scorsese explores the blue-collar side of New York’s Italian mafia in this look at the life of wiseguy Henry Hill (Ray Liotta, above).
Scarface
1983, $44.7 million
With his oft-quoted “say hello to my little friend,” Al Pacino gives an over-the-top performance as Cuban mob boss Tony Montana.
Eastern Promises
2007, $17 million
The film explores the Eastern European Vory V Zakone criminal brotherhood, but its most famous scene comes when mob driver Nikolai (Viggo Mortensen, above) is attacked in the Russian baths. [ SOURCE: MEDIA BY NUMBERS, BOXOFFICEMOJO.COM ]
What’s your favorite gangster film? Go to redeyechicago.com/gangster to vote.
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American Gangster (R) !!!
Who’s in it: Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe
What it’s about: Harlem heroin kingpin Frank Lucas (Washington) and the cop-turned-attorney who brought him down (Crowe).
Worth watching?
“Like its title promises, [‘Gangster’ is] a big, teeming American epic that touches all the bases, and then some: power, war, racism, narcotics, corruption, honesty and motherhood.” [ JAN STUART, NEWSDAY ]
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Jay-Z’s inspiration
Jay-Z says “American Gangster” made him reflect upon his own drug-slinging days and the dangerous lifestyle.
“I was watching the movie, and I was pulling emotions from the film,” the 37-year-old rapper said recently.
He has recorded an album, also called “American Gangster,” inspired by the Denzel Washington-Russell Crowe flick.
“It immediately clicked with me,” Jay-Z said. “Like ‘Scarface’ or any one of those films, you take the good out of it, and you can see it as an inspiring film.”
Jay-Z said he thought his fans would be struck by the image of a black man reaching such heights of success, even on the wrong side of the law, much like the Al Pacino anti-heroes Tony Montana and Michael Corleone.
Jay-Z will perform songs from the album at a sold-out show Wednesday at the House of Blues. On Thursday, “VH1 Storytellers: Jay-Z: Life of an American Gangster” debuts on VH1. [ NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE, AP ]
