The 313 Second Movie Review: "American Gangster"

Thought I was done with thise article? No way. Welcome to the return of the 313 Second Movie Review. Today, I will be looking at "American Gangster". The film stars Denzel Washington as Frank Lucas, and Russell Crowe as Richie Roberts. So here's how the story goes down. We are introduced to Frank Lucas, the right-hand man to Harlem's most dangerous black gangster and most authoritive street figure, Bumpy Williams. When Bumpy kicks the bucket, Frank takes over the business without so much as asking the Italian-Americans or other black gangs. Quickly and ruthlessly, Frank takes over the high-profitting Manhatten drug trade. So Frank goes about his trade without using middlemen procurers who cut the heroine and cut the potency before packaging and marketing. Frank's methods are much more direct, going stright to Thailand to make business deals with the poppie farmers who grow the products themselves. And listen to me, the way Frank gets the bricks to America will make your stomach churn if you're a red-blooded American like me. It only takes a short amount of time before Frank starts running a monopoly on Manhatten heroine dealing. Enter Richie, a New Jersey cop with no martial morals, but goes by the book on when he's on the job. He's also taking law classes at night to become a lawyer. The poor guy becomes a pariah in the police world when he and his partner refuse to take a bribe of $1,000,000.00 from a dealer. Keep in mind, most of the cops in drug enforcement back then were corrupt. And things keep going downhill from there. Richie's partnet OD's and he's going through a bitter divorce. Plus his job isn't doing too great. One thing that does go right for the grizzled cop is that he becomes a member of a federal drug busting ring. As Richie and his cream-of-the-crop drug enforecemnt cops starting taking down the drug trade, Frank marries a Puerto Rican mamacita, moves his ma to a mansion outside the city, and uses his family members to set up fronts for the drug trafficking. Even more high-profile drug lords such as the notorious Nicky Barnes couldn't keep up with Frank at this point. Now, I'll admit, the story line is a bit cliched, but it works absolutely perfectly in this film, making it one of the best of the year (though it doesn't get the praise I gave "300"). And as directors like Zac Synder, Robert Rodriguez, Quentin Tarentino, Sam Raimi, Steven Soderberg, Michael Bay, Paul Greengrass, and Brett Ratner proved earlier in the year, Ridley Scott shows why he is such a genius at making movies. "American Gangster" is a world-class, top-notch movie that cannot be missed.

My time's up, you've been great. For the road: Lil Mama "G-Slide"