AMERICAN GANGSTER

Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe deliver inspired performances as rivals from opposite sides of the law in director Ridley Scott’s restrained true-crime epic about ’70s era Harlem drug king Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington) and the honest cop (Russell Crowe) who brings him down.

Before smuggling 100 kilos of heroin from Southeast Asia with help from the U.S. military during the Viet Nam war, Frank Lucas usurps his respected crime boss mentor Bumpy Johnson when he drops dead from a heart attack.

Upstanding Harlem community figure Frank undercuts his competition’s drug prices and builds a cartel that enables him to marry Miss Puerto Rico, and move his family to New York from North Carolina. Although entertaining “American Gangster” fails to rise to the level of movies like “Scarface” or “The Godfather” due, in part, to a lack of vision by cinematographer Harris Savides and Marc Streitenfeld’s underachieving musical score.

There’s never any question that Ridley Scott’s Americana-now gangster movie will pay out in deep character dividends from Washington and Crowe — two brilliant actors working at the height of their powers. However, this objectively gritty movie never makes the electric emotional connections to make it sizzle.

Russell Crowe’s detective Richie Roberts is the Serpico of his day. He wears an indelible reputation of honesty from turning a huge amount of drug money in to the police department after finding it in a car trunk. Richie is also a womanizer willing to confront his own inability to function as a partial parent to his son. His ex-wife hates him with a ferocity that only comes from passion. But Richie’s ardor lays in breaking up the drug cartel that’s eating Harlem like cockroaches on steroids.

Though committed to his undercover work Richie is also an aspiring attorney, and it strikes the movie as false when Richie’s nebbish trail demeanor seems at odds to his poise as a cop. Crowe’s decision to overplay Richie’s humility in this instance carries a snake-in-the-grass affectation that further splits the film’s arc.

A movie entitled “American Gangster” should be about one man. Screenwriter Steven Zaillian doesn’t heed the distinction, as evidenced in his misguided attempt to give equal time to Frank and Richie. Frank Lucas is the underdog protagonist hero that the audience wants to see win. Denzel plays the character as cunning, fair and generous.

There’s nothing to connect Frank to the mean streets of Scorsese’s ’70s era Manhattan. It’s here that the screenwriter and director conspire to some narrative sleight of hand by substituting Denzel’s spotless leading character for Richie’s ethically-willed cop. In so doing, the true-crime-epic gets relegated to a standard issue police procedural, rather than the soaring tale it hints at but never achieves.

Supporting performances from Josh Brolin, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Cuba Gooding Jr. and Armand Assante add a wealth of character texture and emotional color to a movie that should be better than it is. That said, “American Gangster” is a great movie to go see.

Rated R. 157 mins.