CineScene--By and For Movie Lovers

Superfly Gets a Makeover
by Chris Knipp

American Gangster, Ridley Scott's flashy, energetic gangster biopic, loosely follows the story of a real black drug importer and dealer in late 60s-early 70s Harlem. Frank Lucas (played by Denzel Washington with his usual rush of energy and charisma) did indeed learn the ropes of organized crime from his black boss Bumpy Johnson, did import drugs from Southeast Asia using military connections, did bring his North Carolina family up to be his network for heroin distribution, and was investigated by police detective Ritchie Roberts (played here with strength and conviction by Russell Crowe).

One can't help being of two minds about this film. In many ways it's just another gangster movie, and scenes in it will awaken memories of many others of the genre. It's hard to consider the black Superfly hero exactly a new creation either. Lucas apparently was not really the wealthiest or most successful black drug dealer, though he's made to seem so here. (The real Lucas reportedly was a definite presence in the shooting of the film, and in the views of others is responsible for a number of distortions of the facts.)

But Scott, the director of Blade Runner, Thelma and Louise, Gladiator, and Black Hawk Down is not your average crap film director. He is a crap film director who can produce the occasional cult classic, and who awakens disturbed admiration even at times when his efforts are somehow revolting. This film has great momentum and confidence, and its first half is a pleasure to watch. As seen here, and in the tall, regal embodiment of Denzel Washington, Frank Lucas is more than a top-dog gangster. He's a black hero and a bold economic pioneer, because he explicitly steps forth from the mold set by his mentor Bumpy (Clarence Williams III) to bypass the Italians and sell pure heroin, his own trademarked brand, at a lower price than the adulterated stuff on the street--bypassing the usual wholesalers and setting up his own distribution system. And yet, while establishing a purely black business, he follows Italian traditions in making that business his own kind of cosa nostra--once again a family concern, with his own mother (a glossily distinguished old lady played by Ruby Dee) brought up to preside over a huge white plantation-style manse, taken over, refurbished in an elegant Afro style, and manned by discreet southern black crooks.

So what we have here is a very hollow victory for black liberationists. A black man who achieved the distinction of feeding heroin to Harlem's addicts all by himself, without white supervision or control (though with the necessary collusion of croked white drug cops). Hooray. While the movie avoids a great deal of gratuitous brutality, Lucas is clearly a very cruel man,
capable of bashing in or blowing off a head at a moment's notice.

Whatever distortion there may be, the glorification of the hero being the most morally dubious one, there are some convincing factual elements. Generally speaking, an early 70s feel is nicely achieved through the use of down-tinted color and many, but not overstated, period outfits and hairdos. It's also an interesting point brought out in Scott's occasionally
documentary-style passages that in the early 70s American soldiers were returning stateside in droves addicted to opium or heroin; that their various R&R points (notably Bangkok) obviously were well supplied with these drugs and accustomed to purveying them to Americans; and that (in the film anyway) Lucas went in country himself to find and cut a deal with a local kingpin, using a military cousin as the future intermediary. This is bold and original, but the boldest and most original stroke of all was to bypass organized crime. An independent businessman? The essence of American entrepreneur-ism? Hooray again.

There appears to be exaggeration and blurring of facts in the depiction of Russell Crowe's character, New Jersey crime fighter Ritchie Roberts, as a noble yet flawed opponent. It's really at the end that Ritchie stepped in to cut deals as a prosecutor, and the cops who worked to bring Lucas down are underplayed or demonized.

Again, as in New Jack City and other films, we're treated to repeated shots of a Harlem heroin packing plant staffed by naked nubile black women. Maybe they're essential to the story? How much is mythology here? Relatives of the real Ritchie say he wasn't a deadbeat dad as reported, because he wasn't a dad at all, and also not a philanderer. There is much departure from the facts here, and yet the ending with its ritual string of onscreen text-message follow-ups is mechanical and anti-climactic. Accomplished as it is, Scott's compellingly grand new black gangster movie is finally just another link in a conventional chain.