Veteran producer and sales agent Rosa Bosch has joined the Madrid-based distributor and international sales agency Begin Again Films. Bosch will serve as part of the company’s international department.
Bosch has previously held roles at AFI Fest, the London Film Festival, the National Film Theatre in London (Deputy Director), and the San Sebastian Film Festival. She was a founding partner of the production company and international sales agency, Tequila Gang, along with Guillermo del Toro, Laura Esquivel, Bertha Navarro, and Alejandra Moreno. As a producer, her credits include titles such as Buena Vista Social Club by Wim Wenders, The Devil’s Backbone by Guillermo del Toro, The Gospel of Wonders by Arturo Ripstein, and Broken Silence by Montxo Armendáriz.
Bosch led the international launch and distribution strategy of films such as Amores Perros by Alejandro González Iñarritu and Corpo Celeste by Alice Rorhwacher. She also served as the Managing Director...
Bosch has previously held roles at AFI Fest, the London Film Festival, the National Film Theatre in London (Deputy Director), and the San Sebastian Film Festival. She was a founding partner of the production company and international sales agency, Tequila Gang, along with Guillermo del Toro, Laura Esquivel, Bertha Navarro, and Alejandra Moreno. As a producer, her credits include titles such as Buena Vista Social Club by Wim Wenders, The Devil’s Backbone by Guillermo del Toro, The Gospel of Wonders by Arturo Ripstein, and Broken Silence by Montxo Armendáriz.
Bosch led the international launch and distribution strategy of films such as Amores Perros by Alejandro González Iñarritu and Corpo Celeste by Alice Rorhwacher. She also served as the Managing Director...
- 3/15/2024
- by Zac Ntim
- Deadline Film + TV
From fame and riches to obscurity, Frank Lucas wife Julianna Farrait’s life story looks like it was cut out from an episode of a true crime TV series. At the height of her fame in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Julianna Farrait was one of the famous names in the underworld of Harlem, New York. More than half a century later, Farrait has faded into oblivion. For most of her life, Julianna Farrait has been known and defined by her marriage to Frank Lucas. Frank Lucas was an American drug lord operating in Harlem, who, at the height of his...
- 2/1/2024
- by Onyinye Izundu
- TVovermind.com
The Godfather of Harlem‘s reign is far from over.
MGM+ announced Wednesday that it has renewed the Forest Whitaker drama for Season 4. The pickup comes eight months after its Season 3 finale, which aired March 26.
More from TVLine<em>From</em> Renewed for Season 3 at MGM+<em>Chapelwaite</em> Cancelled at MGM+, Ending Development of Season 2Law & Order: Svu: Kelli Giddish to Return for Season 25 Premiere (Exclusive)
“Forest Whitaker’s inspired performance as Bumpy Johnson has introduced an iconic, archetypal television antihero to the premium television landscape,” MGM+ head Michael Wright said in a statement. “The cast and creative team exceed expectations every single season,...
MGM+ announced Wednesday that it has renewed the Forest Whitaker drama for Season 4. The pickup comes eight months after its Season 3 finale, which aired March 26.
More from TVLine<em>From</em> Renewed for Season 3 at MGM+<em>Chapelwaite</em> Cancelled at MGM+, Ending Development of Season 2Law & Order: Svu: Kelli Giddish to Return for Season 25 Premiere (Exclusive)
“Forest Whitaker’s inspired performance as Bumpy Johnson has introduced an iconic, archetypal television antihero to the premium television landscape,” MGM+ head Michael Wright said in a statement. “The cast and creative team exceed expectations every single season,...
- 11/29/2023
- by Ryan Schwartz
- TVLine.com
Godfather of Harlem has been renewed for a fourth season at MGM+.
The new season, starring Forest Whitaker and co-created by Chris Brancato and Paul Eckstein, will begin production next year in New York.
Season 4 will feature Bumpy Johnson (Whitaker) as he continues his bloody war for control of Harlem against New York’s Mafia families, while contending with the emergence of a potential rival in newly arrived Black gangster Frank Lucas. After Malcolm X’s (Jason Alan Carvell) tragic death, Bumpy must also grapple with his daughter Elise’s (Antoinette Crowe-Legacy) involvement with the Black Panthers.
According to MGM+, Godfather of Harlem is the No. 1 acquisition-driver for the platform, as well as one of its top original series.
“After such a long time away, I’m so excited to be returning to set alongside such an incredible cast, crew, and creative team, under the powerful leadership of Chris Brancato.
The new season, starring Forest Whitaker and co-created by Chris Brancato and Paul Eckstein, will begin production next year in New York.
Season 4 will feature Bumpy Johnson (Whitaker) as he continues his bloody war for control of Harlem against New York’s Mafia families, while contending with the emergence of a potential rival in newly arrived Black gangster Frank Lucas. After Malcolm X’s (Jason Alan Carvell) tragic death, Bumpy must also grapple with his daughter Elise’s (Antoinette Crowe-Legacy) involvement with the Black Panthers.
According to MGM+, Godfather of Harlem is the No. 1 acquisition-driver for the platform, as well as one of its top original series.
“After such a long time away, I’m so excited to be returning to set alongside such an incredible cast, crew, and creative team, under the powerful leadership of Chris Brancato.
- 11/29/2023
- by Katie Campione
- Deadline Film + TV
Actor Denzel Washington managed to connect with audiences with his wide range of characters and films. But the reaction for his highest grossing film was one that even blew him away.
What’s Denzel Washington’s highest-grossing film? Denzel Washington | Tommaso Boddi/FilmMagic
Out of all the movies Washington’s done, American Gangster still reigns supreme as the actor’s top grossing film. The feature saw the Safe House star play real-life drug kingpin Frank Lucas, and grossed $267 million according to The Numbers. Washington was attracted to the role because it had an interesting dynamic with Russell Crowe’s character in the film. Crowe played a cop living a less than honest life, which had an interesting parallel to Washington’s Frank Lucas.
“That one man appears to be so straight and honest in his police work is so dishonest in his private life. Another man who seems to be...
What’s Denzel Washington’s highest-grossing film? Denzel Washington | Tommaso Boddi/FilmMagic
Out of all the movies Washington’s done, American Gangster still reigns supreme as the actor’s top grossing film. The feature saw the Safe House star play real-life drug kingpin Frank Lucas, and grossed $267 million according to The Numbers. Washington was attracted to the role because it had an interesting dynamic with Russell Crowe’s character in the film. Crowe played a cop living a less than honest life, which had an interesting parallel to Washington’s Frank Lucas.
“That one man appears to be so straight and honest in his police work is so dishonest in his private life. Another man who seems to be...
- 11/24/2023
- by Antonio Stallings
- Showbiz Cheat Sheet
Streaming on Netflix, How to Become a Mob Boss brings out the life journeys of different mafia bosses. The second episode highlights the life of Frank Lucas, a drug lord in New York during the 1960s. How he raised his empire from scratch through extensive research, incorporating different business tactics, has been showcased. The narration of Peter Dinklage and the amazing storytelling through the animations in the documentary adds color to the story of the greater-than-life drug mafia, Frank Lucas. In what ways does Frank think to prosper in the business of heroin? Will Frank be able to save his business ultimately? Let us find out!
How Did Frank Get Into The Heroin Business?
Born in rural North Carolina during the Great Depression, the heroin tycoon Frank Lucas made his way into the business by creating his own supply chain. He earned a profit of more than a million dollars in one day.
How Did Frank Get Into The Heroin Business?
Born in rural North Carolina during the Great Depression, the heroin tycoon Frank Lucas made his way into the business by creating his own supply chain. He earned a profit of more than a million dollars in one day.
- 11/14/2023
- by Debjyoti Dey
- Film Fugitives
“How to Become a Mob Boss” is a docuseries that revisits the lives of some of the most famous criminals in history.
Al Capone, Frank Lucas, Salvatore Riina, John Gotti, Whitey Bulger, or the renowned Pablo Escobar. Do they sound familiar, right? In this series narrated by Peter Dinklage, we’ll have the opportunity to relive the defining moments of these individuals who were all prominent leaders of criminal organizations. Without any scruples, they were able to establish crime as a lucrative business and a way of life.
The series is presented as a guidebook for climbing the corporate ladder, like a marketing manual that combines archival footage with animations and, above all, plenty of irony. The result is an engaging documentary about the lives of these criminals.
About the docuseries
Recent documentaries about John Gotti, the series about Pablo Escobar…criminals have a proven record of success on Netflix,...
Al Capone, Frank Lucas, Salvatore Riina, John Gotti, Whitey Bulger, or the renowned Pablo Escobar. Do they sound familiar, right? In this series narrated by Peter Dinklage, we’ll have the opportunity to relive the defining moments of these individuals who were all prominent leaders of criminal organizations. Without any scruples, they were able to establish crime as a lucrative business and a way of life.
The series is presented as a guidebook for climbing the corporate ladder, like a marketing manual that combines archival footage with animations and, above all, plenty of irony. The result is an engaging documentary about the lives of these criminals.
About the docuseries
Recent documentaries about John Gotti, the series about Pablo Escobar…criminals have a proven record of success on Netflix,...
- 11/12/2023
- by Alice Lange
- Martin Cid - TV
Clockwise from top left: Malcolm X (Warner Bros.), Washington at the 74th Annual Academy Awards (Getty/Frederick M. Brown) Training Day (Warner Bros/Screenshot), Remember The Titans (Buena Vista Pictures/Screenshot), Fences (Paramount). Graphic: The A.V. Club
In 2020, The New York Times anointed Denzel Washington the greatest actor of the 21st century so far.
In 2020, The New York Times anointed Denzel Washington the greatest actor of the 21st century so far.
- 8/31/2023
- by Phil Pirrello
- avclub.com
Inside Man is a crime thriller movie based on a true story. Directed by Danny A. Abeckaser from a screenplay by Kosta Kondilopoulos, Inside Man tells the story of a disgraced NYPD detective, who’s given a chance to go undercover and take down the mob’s most dangerous killer. The film stars Emile Hirsch in the lead role with Lucy Hale, Sid Rosenberg, Danny A. Abeckaser, Ashley Greene, and Jake Cannavale. So, if you loved Inside Man here are some similar movies you could watch next.
The Departed (Netflix & Max) Credit – Warner Bros.
Synopsis: An undercover state cop who infiltrated a Mafia clan and a mole in the police force working for the same mob race to track down and identify each other before being exposed to the enemy, after both sides realize their outfit has a rat.
The Town (Rent on Prime Video) Credit – Warner Bros.
Synopsis: Academy Award® winner Ben Affleck writes,...
The Departed (Netflix & Max) Credit – Warner Bros.
Synopsis: An undercover state cop who infiltrated a Mafia clan and a mole in the police force working for the same mob race to track down and identify each other before being exposed to the enemy, after both sides realize their outfit has a rat.
The Town (Rent on Prime Video) Credit – Warner Bros.
Synopsis: Academy Award® winner Ben Affleck writes,...
- 8/19/2023
- by Kulwant Singh
- Cinema Blind
Biography films are a fascinating genre that depict the lives of real people, often with dramatic and artistic flair. They can inspire us, educate us, entertain us, and challenge us to think about the world in new ways. Some of the most acclaimed and influential films of all time belong to this genre, and they span across different eras, cultures, and themes.
In this article, we will rank the 10 best biography films of all time, after the release of Oppenheimer in 2023. Oppenheimer is a biographical film directed by Christopher Nolan, starring Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer, the American scientist who led the development of the atomic bomb during World War II. The film has been praised for its stunning cinematography, complex narrative, and powerful performances. It is widely considered to be one of the best films of 2023, and a masterpiece of biographical cinema.
But what are the other films...
In this article, we will rank the 10 best biography films of all time, after the release of Oppenheimer in 2023. Oppenheimer is a biographical film directed by Christopher Nolan, starring Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer, the American scientist who led the development of the atomic bomb during World War II. The film has been praised for its stunning cinematography, complex narrative, and powerful performances. It is widely considered to be one of the best films of 2023, and a masterpiece of biographical cinema.
But what are the other films...
- 7/28/2023
- by amalprasadappu
- https://thecinemanews.online/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/IMG_4649
Actor Denzel Washington hasn’t played too many villains in his various films . But two of his famous famous villain roles were characters his son helped persuade him to do.
How John David Washington convinced Denzel Washington to play two villain roles Denzel Washington | Mark Sagliocco/FilmMagic
Washington has played a wide variety of roles, but some of his most memorable characters were his villains. His performance as Alonzo Harris in Training Day earned Washington his second Oscar win, and his first for Best Actor. But it was also a role that his son, John David, wanted Washington to do as well.
“He really pushed me to do three films,” Washington once told Female. “The other two were completely different. But he’s the one who really pushed me to do Training Day. He said, because you’ve never done anything like that.”
The other villain role that Washington did...
How John David Washington convinced Denzel Washington to play two villain roles Denzel Washington | Mark Sagliocco/FilmMagic
Washington has played a wide variety of roles, but some of his most memorable characters were his villains. His performance as Alonzo Harris in Training Day earned Washington his second Oscar win, and his first for Best Actor. But it was also a role that his son, John David, wanted Washington to do as well.
“He really pushed me to do three films,” Washington once told Female. “The other two were completely different. But he’s the one who really pushed me to do Training Day. He said, because you’ve never done anything like that.”
The other villain role that Washington did...
- 7/27/2023
- by Antonio Stallings
- Showbiz Cheat Sheet
Now that the long-gestating Gladiator sequel is moving towards production, director Ridley Scott's clearly wasting no time in gathering a top notch ensemble. With Paul Mescal and, more recently, Barry Keoghan attached to two of the main roles, Scott is adding Denzel Washington to the line-up.
This would, of course, mean a reunion for Scott and Washington after working on 2007's American Gangster, which starred the latter as crime boss Frank Lucas.
What role he'd be playing here isn't disclosed in Deadline's report on the casting, but Washington was apparently swayed by the "badass" role writer David Scarpa has crafted for him, and a meeting with Scott helped seal the deal.
Gladiator 2 will be set years after the events of the first film and finds Mescal playing a grown version of the character Lucius, as originally brought to life by Spencer Treat Clark. Keoghan is in line to be the primary antagonist,...
This would, of course, mean a reunion for Scott and Washington after working on 2007's American Gangster, which starred the latter as crime boss Frank Lucas.
What role he'd be playing here isn't disclosed in Deadline's report on the casting, but Washington was apparently swayed by the "badass" role writer David Scarpa has crafted for him, and a meeting with Scott helped seal the deal.
Gladiator 2 will be set years after the events of the first film and finds Mescal playing a grown version of the character Lucius, as originally brought to life by Spencer Treat Clark. Keoghan is in line to be the primary antagonist,...
- 3/19/2023
- by James White
- Empire - Movies
Ridley Scott's "Gladiator" sequel just got even cooler: Deadline is reporting that Denzel Washington is finalizing negotiations to star in the upcoming sequel to Scott's Best Picture winning 2000 epic.
Washington is reportedly set to play a "bad-ass" role that Scott crafted just for him, and Deadline's sources say the "Training Day" and "Malcolm X" star became interested after reading the script. The film's screenplay is written by David Scarpa, who has worked with Scott before on projects including "All The Money in the World." While the nature of Washington's role hasn't been revealed, previous reporting indicates that the new movie will follow Lucius, the nephew of Joaquin Phoenix's villainous ruler Commodus.
The Hollywood veteran isn't the first person to join the cast, although Washington definitely adds even more gravitas to the already-exciting project. Paul Mescal, the Oscar-nominated actor whose short filmography has included fantastic turns in "Normal People,...
Washington is reportedly set to play a "bad-ass" role that Scott crafted just for him, and Deadline's sources say the "Training Day" and "Malcolm X" star became interested after reading the script. The film's screenplay is written by David Scarpa, who has worked with Scott before on projects including "All The Money in the World." While the nature of Washington's role hasn't been revealed, previous reporting indicates that the new movie will follow Lucius, the nephew of Joaquin Phoenix's villainous ruler Commodus.
The Hollywood veteran isn't the first person to join the cast, although Washington definitely adds even more gravitas to the already-exciting project. Paul Mescal, the Oscar-nominated actor whose short filmography has included fantastic turns in "Normal People,...
- 3/17/2023
- by Valerie Ettenhofer
- Slash Film
Ever since there have been movies, there have been movie stars – and becoming one of the world’s greatest actors involves being able to be many things at once. For one, you have to be able to act – to really inhabit a character’s deepest emotions, to step into their skin so that the words on the page come across as lived and felt. Plus, you have to be able to take that technical mastery and apply it across multiple genres, from quiet character dramas to epic action-packed blockbusters. And on top of that, you have to have that thing that can’t really be learned, or taught – a charisma, a command of the camera, an energy that enlivens even the most stellar script, and makes audiences flock to the multiplex in their droves.
For Empire’s February 2023 issue, we asked readers to vote for the best actors of all...
For Empire’s February 2023 issue, we asked readers to vote for the best actors of all...
- 12/20/2022
- by Ben Travis, Sophie Butcher, Nick de Semlyen, James Dyer, John Nugent, Alex Godfrey, Helen O’Hara
- Empire - Movies
Three top TV showrunners will reveal secrets behind their projects when they join Gold Derby’s special “Meet the Experts” Q&a event with 2022/2023 awards contenders. They will participate in two video discussions to premiere on Tuesday, November 22, at 6:00 p.m. Pt; 9:00 p.m. Et. We’ll have a one-on-one with our senior editor Rob Licuria and a roundtable chat with all of the group together.
RSVP today to our entire ongoing contenders panel series by clicking here to book your free reservation. We’ll send you a reminder a few minutes before the start of the show.
This “Meet the Experts” panel welcomes the following contenders:
A Friend of the Family (Peacock)
Synopsis: Tells the harrowing true story of the Broberg family, whose daughter Jan was kidnapped multiple times over a period of years by a charismatic, obsessed family “friend.”
Bio: Nick Antosca’s career has included “Hannibal,...
RSVP today to our entire ongoing contenders panel series by clicking here to book your free reservation. We’ll send you a reminder a few minutes before the start of the show.
This “Meet the Experts” panel welcomes the following contenders:
A Friend of the Family (Peacock)
Synopsis: Tells the harrowing true story of the Broberg family, whose daughter Jan was kidnapped multiple times over a period of years by a charismatic, obsessed family “friend.”
Bio: Nick Antosca’s career has included “Hannibal,...
- 11/16/2022
- by Chris Beachum and Rob Licuria
- Gold Derby
Ridley Scott debuted not just one, but two big-budget, star-studded vehicles this year with "The Last Duel" and "House of Gucci," both of which were released within a month of each other. Scott is one of the most prolific filmmakers of his generation, and "American Gangster" stands as one of his very best films. The 157-minute crime epic was a throwback to classic films that explored the lives of both cops and criminals in nearly equal measure. It spotlighted real events and public figures some audiences may not have been familiar with.
The film centers on the rise and fall of Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington), the...
The post Movies Like American Gangster You Definitely Need to See appeared first on /Film.
The film centers on the rise and fall of Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington), the...
The post Movies Like American Gangster You Definitely Need to See appeared first on /Film.
- 12/13/2021
- by Liam Gaughan
- Slash Film
Ridley Scott’s 2007 feature, American Gangster, let Denzel Washington lead a regime change in uptown mob movies. That heralded position had always been held by Bumpy Johnson, who steered the underworld through the real-life Harlem Renaissance, holding his own against the Irish and Jewish mobs, and enjoying a long relationship with New York’s Italian criminal outfit. Partnered with Harlem’s crime queen Stephanie St. Clair and her gang the 40 Thieves, Johnson made his bones in the turf war with Dutch Schultz from the Bronx in the 1920s and ‘30s. Lucky Luciano gave the order to take out Schultz and declare Bumpy a family associate. Bumpy played chess with the head of the Five Families for years in front of the Ymca on 135th Street.
Laurence Fishburne played “Bumpy Rhodes,” based on Bumpy Johnson, in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1984 gangster film, The Cotton Club, and reprised the role as Johnson in the 1997 film Hoodlum.
Laurence Fishburne played “Bumpy Rhodes,” based on Bumpy Johnson, in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1984 gangster film, The Cotton Club, and reprised the role as Johnson in the 1997 film Hoodlum.
- 11/10/2021
- by David Crow
- Den of Geek
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With two films slated for release this year and an upcoming award at the 78th annual Venice Film Festival, Ridley Scott has a lot to celebrate. The 83-year-old English director’s next release, “The Last Duel,” will premiere at the Italian film festival in September before being released stateside on October 15.
And then there’s “House of Gucci” — the highly anticipated crime drama starring Lady Gaga as Patrizia Reggiani, and Adam Driver as Maurizio Gucci. The film follows the tumultuous relationship and deadly divorce of the heads of the Gucci empire. Also worth mentioning: Jared Leto makes a stunning transformation for the role of Maurizio’s cousin, Paolo Gucci.
With so much well-deserved...
With two films slated for release this year and an upcoming award at the 78th annual Venice Film Festival, Ridley Scott has a lot to celebrate. The 83-year-old English director’s next release, “The Last Duel,” will premiere at the Italian film festival in September before being released stateside on October 15.
And then there’s “House of Gucci” — the highly anticipated crime drama starring Lady Gaga as Patrizia Reggiani, and Adam Driver as Maurizio Gucci. The film follows the tumultuous relationship and deadly divorce of the heads of the Gucci empire. Also worth mentioning: Jared Leto makes a stunning transformation for the role of Maurizio’s cousin, Paolo Gucci.
With so much well-deserved...
- 8/14/2021
- by Latifah Muhammad and Angel Saunders
- Indiewire
Producer Nina Yang Bongiovi has made a name for herself fighting for first-time indie filmmakers telling stories about underrepresented people and communities. And though her new series “Godfather of Harlem” had Forest Whitaker attached to play well-known gangster Bumpy Johnson, she still fought an uphill battle to get the show made.
But Yang Bongiovi got a huge boost when Ryan Coogler — whose first feature “Fruitvale Station” she championed back in 2013 — scored a critical and commercial hit with 2018’s “Black Panther.” It proved she had a sharp eye for talent.
“When people were really on the fence about ‘Godfather of Harlem’ … last year about January … people were considering it and they weren’t sure. And then ‘Black Panther’ hit, and it reaffirmed what our worth is when it comes to a show like ‘Godfather,’ Yang Bongiovi said in an interview with TheWrap. “How crazy is it that we launched Ryan Coogler’s career?...
But Yang Bongiovi got a huge boost when Ryan Coogler — whose first feature “Fruitvale Station” she championed back in 2013 — scored a critical and commercial hit with 2018’s “Black Panther.” It proved she had a sharp eye for talent.
“When people were really on the fence about ‘Godfather of Harlem’ … last year about January … people were considering it and they weren’t sure. And then ‘Black Panther’ hit, and it reaffirmed what our worth is when it comes to a show like ‘Godfather,’ Yang Bongiovi said in an interview with TheWrap. “How crazy is it that we launched Ryan Coogler’s career?...
- 9/29/2019
- by Brian Welk
- The Wrap
Will Smith is the kind of actor that always seems to play a good guy or a hero in the movies that he makes. Well, he’s about to shed his good-guy persona and is set to play true life crime boss Nicky Barnes in a new Netflix film called The Council.
Nicky Barnes was in charge of the most notorious mobs in New York City. He was the boss of a crime syndicate in Harlem in the 1970s and 1980s and he changed up the drug dealing game when he partnered up with the Italian mafia. This crime syndicate was made up of men “who dreamed of a self-sufficient and self-policing African American city-state, funded by revolutionizing the drug game.”
The New York Times also described Barnes as “the flamboyant dope peddler who flooded Harlem and other black neighborhoods with heroin, led cops on frivolous 100 m.p.h. car chases and redefined bling.
Nicky Barnes was in charge of the most notorious mobs in New York City. He was the boss of a crime syndicate in Harlem in the 1970s and 1980s and he changed up the drug dealing game when he partnered up with the Italian mafia. This crime syndicate was made up of men “who dreamed of a self-sufficient and self-policing African American city-state, funded by revolutionizing the drug game.”
The New York Times also described Barnes as “the flamboyant dope peddler who flooded Harlem and other black neighborhoods with heroin, led cops on frivolous 100 m.p.h. car chases and redefined bling.
- 9/24/2019
- by Joey Paur
- GeekTyrant
Will Smith has signed on to star in and produce Netflix’s upcoming film “The Council,” the fact-based story of of Nicky Barnes, who led a New York City crime syndicate that ruled Harlem in the ’70s and ’80s. While Barnes has been a secondary character in films before, the new film will be the first to focus squarely on the man and his criminal enterprise. The screenplay was written by journalist and veteran of the biopic genre Peter Landesman. He wrote and directed 2015’s “Concussion,” which stars Smith as a doctor who fights against the NFL over his research on traumatic brain injury, the 2013 post-Kennedy-assassination tale “Parkland,” and Watergate drama “Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House.”
Per the film’s official synopsis, “‘The Council’ is the never-before told story of a crime syndicate consisting of seven African-American men who ruled Harlem in the 1970s and early 80s.
Per the film’s official synopsis, “‘The Council’ is the never-before told story of a crime syndicate consisting of seven African-American men who ruled Harlem in the 1970s and early 80s.
- 9/24/2019
- by Chris Lindahl
- Indiewire
Will Smith is trading in his family-friendly aura and big blockbuster stardom to portray American crime boss Nicky Barnes in a biopic for Netflix called “The Council.”
Peter Landesman is writing the script for the film, which tells the untold story of a crime syndicate consisting of the seven black men who ruled Harlem in the 1970s and early ’80s.
This crime syndicate, as spelled out in the film’s logline, was made up of men who dreamed of a self-sufficient and self-policing African American city-state, funded by revolutionizing the drug game.
Also Read: 'Bad Boys for Life:' Will Smith and Martin Lawrence Ride or Die 'One Last Time' in First Trailer (Video)
“The Council” will center on the syndicate’s head, Nicky Barnes, who was dubbed by the New York Times as “Mr. Untouchable.” The film will focus on the Shakespearean court intrigue between Barnes and all...
Peter Landesman is writing the script for the film, which tells the untold story of a crime syndicate consisting of the seven black men who ruled Harlem in the 1970s and early ’80s.
This crime syndicate, as spelled out in the film’s logline, was made up of men who dreamed of a self-sufficient and self-policing African American city-state, funded by revolutionizing the drug game.
Also Read: 'Bad Boys for Life:' Will Smith and Martin Lawrence Ride or Die 'One Last Time' in First Trailer (Video)
“The Council” will center on the syndicate’s head, Nicky Barnes, who was dubbed by the New York Times as “Mr. Untouchable.” The film will focus on the Shakespearean court intrigue between Barnes and all...
- 9/24/2019
- by Trey Williams
- The Wrap
Frank Lucas, the former heroin dealer and drug kingpin whose life became the subject of Ridley Scott’s 2007 film “American Gangster,” died Thursday. He was 88.
Lucas’ nephew, Aldwan Lassiter, confirmed the news to the New York Times. He said Lucas died of natural causes in Cedar Grove, New Jersey.
Born in 1930, Lucas operated in Harlem during the 1960s and ’70s and created efficiencies in his drug trade by removing Mafia middlemen and buying heroin straight from suppliers in Southeast Asia’s Golden Triangle. By his own account, he smuggled heroin into the United States using American service planes returning from the Vietnam War, which was depicted in “American Gangster,” featuring Denzel Washington as Lucas and Russell Crowe as the detective trying to catch him.
“American Gangster” was nominated for two Academy Awards for art direction and best supporting actress for Ruby Dee. The film, which presented a heavily fictionalized version of events,...
Lucas’ nephew, Aldwan Lassiter, confirmed the news to the New York Times. He said Lucas died of natural causes in Cedar Grove, New Jersey.
Born in 1930, Lucas operated in Harlem during the 1960s and ’70s and created efficiencies in his drug trade by removing Mafia middlemen and buying heroin straight from suppliers in Southeast Asia’s Golden Triangle. By his own account, he smuggled heroin into the United States using American service planes returning from the Vietnam War, which was depicted in “American Gangster,” featuring Denzel Washington as Lucas and Russell Crowe as the detective trying to catch him.
“American Gangster” was nominated for two Academy Awards for art direction and best supporting actress for Ruby Dee. The film, which presented a heavily fictionalized version of events,...
- 6/2/2019
- by Erin Nyren
- Variety Film + TV
Frank Lucas, the legendary drug kingpin and inspiration for Ridley Scott’s 2007 true crime film “American Gangster,” has died.
He died of natural causes at the age of 88, his nephew Aldwan Lassiter confirmed to Rolling Stone, who first reported the news.
Nicknamed the “Original Gangster,” Lucas was raised in North Carolina, later moving to Harlem where he rose through the ranks of the illegal drug trade. Known for being the mastermind behind the “Golden Triangle” criminal operation of the 1970s, Lucas claimed to have smuggled heroin into the United States from Southeast Asia by way of the coffins of U.S. soldiers killed in Vietnam. Ron Chepesiuk, co-author of a biography of Lucas, later challenged those claims; Lucas maintained his story was true, though in 2008 he amended it, saying he only transported heroin in coffins one time.
Also Read: Top 10 Highest-Grossing Monster Movies, From 'Godzilla' to 'King Kong...
He died of natural causes at the age of 88, his nephew Aldwan Lassiter confirmed to Rolling Stone, who first reported the news.
Nicknamed the “Original Gangster,” Lucas was raised in North Carolina, later moving to Harlem where he rose through the ranks of the illegal drug trade. Known for being the mastermind behind the “Golden Triangle” criminal operation of the 1970s, Lucas claimed to have smuggled heroin into the United States from Southeast Asia by way of the coffins of U.S. soldiers killed in Vietnam. Ron Chepesiuk, co-author of a biography of Lucas, later challenged those claims; Lucas maintained his story was true, though in 2008 he amended it, saying he only transported heroin in coffins one time.
Also Read: Top 10 Highest-Grossing Monster Movies, From 'Godzilla' to 'King Kong...
- 6/1/2019
- by Margeaux Sippell
- The Wrap
The inspiration for Denzel Washington’s drug-dealing mogul in the 2007 film American Gangster has died. Frank Lucas was 88 and died while being transported to a New Jersey hospital.
Lucas and his wife, Julianna Farrait-Rodriguez, were once referred to as the black Bonnie & Clyde for their close alliance. She was portrayed as “Eva” by Lymari Nadal in American Gangster and was also a drug dealer, being jailed for five years in 2010 for trying to sell cocaine to a government informant in Puerto Rico. At the time she was 65 and Lucas was 81.
During the 1960s and 1970s, Lucas was the chief purveyor in New York City of a type of heroin called Blue Magic, a concoction which was 10 percent pure compared to the standard 5 percent of the day. His clientele allegedly included celebrities, top business people and politicians.
Lucas typically began his dealing around 4 Pm, a time when the police had a two-hour shift switch.
Lucas and his wife, Julianna Farrait-Rodriguez, were once referred to as the black Bonnie & Clyde for their close alliance. She was portrayed as “Eva” by Lymari Nadal in American Gangster and was also a drug dealer, being jailed for five years in 2010 for trying to sell cocaine to a government informant in Puerto Rico. At the time she was 65 and Lucas was 81.
During the 1960s and 1970s, Lucas was the chief purveyor in New York City of a type of heroin called Blue Magic, a concoction which was 10 percent pure compared to the standard 5 percent of the day. His clientele allegedly included celebrities, top business people and politicians.
Lucas typically began his dealing around 4 Pm, a time when the police had a two-hour shift switch.
- 6/1/2019
- by Bruce Haring
- Deadline Film + TV
Drug lord Frank Lucas, who inspired the 2007 film American Gangster, played by Denzel Washington, has died at 88 years old.
Lucas passed away on Thursday, as confirmed by his nephew, Aldwan Lassiter, who revealed to The Rolling Stone that his uncle’s death was of natural causes.
The drug kingpin is best know for being one of the brains behind the “Golden Triangle,” an area in Southeast Asia where he used the coffins of fallen American soldiers from Vietnam to transport drugs into the U.S.
His origins with drugs came from his involvement with gangster Bumpy Johnson, whose mob boss...
Lucas passed away on Thursday, as confirmed by his nephew, Aldwan Lassiter, who revealed to The Rolling Stone that his uncle’s death was of natural causes.
The drug kingpin is best know for being one of the brains behind the “Golden Triangle,” an area in Southeast Asia where he used the coffins of fallen American soldiers from Vietnam to transport drugs into the U.S.
His origins with drugs came from his involvement with gangster Bumpy Johnson, whose mob boss...
- 6/1/2019
- by Eric Todisco
- PEOPLE.com
Frank Lucas, the Harlem drug kingpin immortalized in Ridley Scott’s 2007 crime film American Gangster, died Thursday at the age of 88. Lucas’ nephew Aldwan Lassiter confirmed his death to Rolling Stone, adding that Lucas died of natural causes.
Lucas, the “Original Gangster” who was known to confabulate his own criminal legacy, is credited as the architect behind the infamous “Golden Triangle” gambit of the early 1970s where he claimed to have imported heroin from Southeast Asia in the coffins of U.S. soldiers killed in Vietnam.
“Who the hell is...
Lucas, the “Original Gangster” who was known to confabulate his own criminal legacy, is credited as the architect behind the infamous “Golden Triangle” gambit of the early 1970s where he claimed to have imported heroin from Southeast Asia in the coffins of U.S. soldiers killed in Vietnam.
“Who the hell is...
- 5/31/2019
- by Daniel Kreps
- Rollingstone.com
Frank Lucas, one of America's most infamous drug kingpins, died Thursday night ... TMZ has confirmed. Frank, famously played by Denzel Washington in the 2007 movie "American Gangster," died in New Jersey, according to his brother. We're told Frank was being transported to a hospital for an unknown health issue and died on the way. Lucas rose to power dealing heroin in Harlem in the 1960s and '70s, and he boasted of cutting out middlemen by...
- 5/31/2019
- by TMZ Staff
- TMZ
Academy Award-winning actor Russell Crowe has returned to the nation’s movie screens in Joel Edgerton‘s latest acclaimed film, “Boy Erased,” in which he plays a small-town Baptist minister, who, upon learning that his son is gay, orders him to undergo conversion therapy. After seeming to be starring in every other film in the early 2000s, Crowe has become more selective in recent years, so that when he does appear onscreen in a film, it feels like more of an event.
Crowe is one of only a handful of actors to have been Oscar-nominated for a leading role in three consecutive years — 1999’s “The Insider,” 2000’s “Gladiator” (win) and 2001’s “A Beautiful Mind,” all of which were also nominated for Best Picture (with “Gladiator” and “A Beautiful Mind” winning). He has also been nominated for five Golden Globe Awards and 10 Screen Actors Guild Awards (winning in both cases for...
Crowe is one of only a handful of actors to have been Oscar-nominated for a leading role in three consecutive years — 1999’s “The Insider,” 2000’s “Gladiator” (win) and 2001’s “A Beautiful Mind,” all of which were also nominated for Best Picture (with “Gladiator” and “A Beautiful Mind” winning). He has also been nominated for five Golden Globe Awards and 10 Screen Actors Guild Awards (winning in both cases for...
- 11/3/2018
- by Tom O'Brien and Chris Beachum
- Gold Derby
Best known for its Sitges Pitchbox, Film Market Hub has also emerged as a live event/digital driver for the drama series business in Spain.
Last December’s Madrid TV Pitchbox helped TV projects gain visibility in front of a group of executives at high-profile TV companies.
For Pep Jové’s internet comedy series “Streisand Effect,” set up at Barcelona’s Compacto, “the event marked a before and after,” says producer Aritz Cirbián.
A few months later at the second Conecta Fiction co-production forum, “Streisand” earned a development contract from Rtve’s digital platform Playz.
Frank Lucas’ youth drama “Wv$P,” the descent into hell for a rich teenager teaming with a street dance gang, was another standout title at Madrid.
“It allowed us to meet one-on-one with executives at main TV platforms and get feedback,” says producer Gerard Rodríguez at Japonica Films. “We are in serious talks with two of them.
Last December’s Madrid TV Pitchbox helped TV projects gain visibility in front of a group of executives at high-profile TV companies.
For Pep Jové’s internet comedy series “Streisand Effect,” set up at Barcelona’s Compacto, “the event marked a before and after,” says producer Aritz Cirbián.
A few months later at the second Conecta Fiction co-production forum, “Streisand” earned a development contract from Rtve’s digital platform Playz.
Frank Lucas’ youth drama “Wv$P,” the descent into hell for a rich teenager teaming with a street dance gang, was another standout title at Madrid.
“It allowed us to meet one-on-one with executives at main TV platforms and get feedback,” says producer Gerard Rodríguez at Japonica Films. “We are in serious talks with two of them.
- 10/15/2018
- by Emiliano De Pablos
- Variety Film + TV
Three Oscars, Three Golden Globes, a Tony, and a lifetime of memorable performances. Denzel Washington has proven that he is one of the most iconic actors in Hollywood today. With his latest film “The Magnificent Seven” out and his expecting Oscar-contending film “Fences” coming soon, let’s look back at his long career.
Let’s start with this picture of him as a kid that was used in a Boys & Girls Club of America ad, just to show you he was born with that steely-eyed gaze.
After getting started in Maryland and Off-Broadway theatre, Washington got his first major role on the 80s hit medical TV show “St. Elsewhere” as Dr. Philip Chandler.
In 1987, Washington earned his first Academy Award nomination playing the famed South African activist Steve Biko in “Cry Freedom.”
Two years later, Washington was officially a major star in Hollywood when he won Best Supporting Actor at...
Let’s start with this picture of him as a kid that was used in a Boys & Girls Club of America ad, just to show you he was born with that steely-eyed gaze.
After getting started in Maryland and Off-Broadway theatre, Washington got his first major role on the 80s hit medical TV show “St. Elsewhere” as Dr. Philip Chandler.
In 1987, Washington earned his first Academy Award nomination playing the famed South African activist Steve Biko in “Cry Freedom.”
Two years later, Washington was officially a major star in Hollywood when he won Best Supporting Actor at...
- 7/17/2018
- by Jeremy Fuster
- The Wrap
[Editor’s note: The following interview contains spoilers for “Marvel’s Luke Cage” Season 2.]
“Luke Cage” showrunner Cheo Hodari Coker isn’t at all shy when it comes to acknowledging his influences, grinning as he described a jar in his writers’ room that demands a dollar anytime someone makes a reference to “The Wire” or “The Godfather.”
“I come to the room with cash,” Coker laughed.
And that’s clear when you watch the final minutes of “Luke Cage” Season 2, when Luke (Mike Colter) accepts the mantle of leadership from Mariah (Alfre Woodard) over Harlem’s Paradise, and Misty finds herself shut out of the inner sanctum just like Kay Corleone.
“When we were filming that moment, where the door closes on Misty,” Coker said, “I literally had my iPad open to say, ‘okay I want to pause, so that we’re going to match the shot on Kay in reverse.’ We put it in there.”
Coker credited his uncle, Richard Wesley.
“It’s great fun,...
“Luke Cage” showrunner Cheo Hodari Coker isn’t at all shy when it comes to acknowledging his influences, grinning as he described a jar in his writers’ room that demands a dollar anytime someone makes a reference to “The Wire” or “The Godfather.”
“I come to the room with cash,” Coker laughed.
And that’s clear when you watch the final minutes of “Luke Cage” Season 2, when Luke (Mike Colter) accepts the mantle of leadership from Mariah (Alfre Woodard) over Harlem’s Paradise, and Misty finds herself shut out of the inner sanctum just like Kay Corleone.
“When we were filming that moment, where the door closes on Misty,” Coker said, “I literally had my iPad open to say, ‘okay I want to pause, so that we’re going to match the shot on Kay in reverse.’ We put it in there.”
Coker credited his uncle, Richard Wesley.
“It’s great fun,...
- 6/24/2018
- by Liz Shannon Miller
- Indiewire
"Man, I am so sick of this shit," the bulletproof title character of Luke Cage (Mike Colter) vents about his nemesis, politician-cum-crimelord Mariah Dillard (Alfre Woodard). "It's always rinse and repeat with her."
By that point in Luke Cage's second season (it debuts on June 22nd), viewers will likely feel the same way – not just about Mariah, but about this whole repetitive slog, perhaps the worst offender yet of the Netflix/Marvel drama approach of filling up a 13-episode bag with only three or four episodes' worth of story at best.
By that point in Luke Cage's second season (it debuts on June 22nd), viewers will likely feel the same way – not just about Mariah, but about this whole repetitive slog, perhaps the worst offender yet of the Netflix/Marvel drama approach of filling up a 13-episode bag with only three or four episodes' worth of story at best.
- 6/20/2018
- Rollingstone.com
Looking back on this still-young century makes clear that 2007 was a major time for cinematic happenings — and, on the basis of this retrospective, one we’re not quite through with ten years on. One’s mind might quickly flash to a few big titles that will be represented, but it is the plurality of both festival and theatrical premieres that truly surprises: late works from old masters, debuts from filmmakers who’ve since become some of our most-respected artists, and mid-career turning points that didn’t necessarily announce themselves as such at the time. Join us as an assembled team, many of whom were coming of age that year, takes on their favorites.
There are at least two Ridley Scotts working in Hollywood. Ridley Scott, auteur — the man who revolutionized science fiction and horror cinema at the same time with Alien, who single-handedly resurrected the swords-and-sandals epic with Gladiator, who...
There are at least two Ridley Scotts working in Hollywood. Ridley Scott, auteur — the man who revolutionized science fiction and horror cinema at the same time with Alien, who single-handedly resurrected the swords-and-sandals epic with Gladiator, who...
- 11/9/2017
- by The Film Stage
- The Film Stage
“American Gangster” is like a lot of Ridley Scott films — functional, passable, entertainment that doesn’t really leave much of an impression. Certainly, no one has been asking for more, but if you’re one of the few who asked themselves, what was going on in Harlem before Denzel Washington‘s Frank Lucas took power, well, now you’ll have your answer.
A prequel series in development from “Narcos” co-creator Chris Brancato.
Continue reading ‘American Gangster’ Prequel Series In The Works, Kendrick Lamar May Provide Music at The Playlist.
A prequel series in development from “Narcos” co-creator Chris Brancato.
Continue reading ‘American Gangster’ Prequel Series In The Works, Kendrick Lamar May Provide Music at The Playlist.
- 10/24/2017
- by Kevin Jagernauth
- The Playlist
The veteran actor joins Chris Pratt to discuss his remake of the classic western. But why are they so keen to play down its obvious radical political subtext?
It is mid-afternoon and the Venice Lido is a ghost town baking in the sun. The film festival wound down the previous evening, and now the thoroughfare between the beach and the cinemas is deserted except for construction workers in threes and fours dismantling the decorations. The glitz has faded. The stars are gone.
Well, most of them. Denzel Washington and Chris Pratt are the last men standing in this tumbleweed town. In the street, their faces loom menacingly out of the posters for the remake of The Magnificent Seven, in which an ethnically diverse cast of outlaws and miscreants defend oppressed townsfolk from a brutal tyrant. Seated at a table in a hotel room, the actors appear somewhat less than magnificent.
It is mid-afternoon and the Venice Lido is a ghost town baking in the sun. The film festival wound down the previous evening, and now the thoroughfare between the beach and the cinemas is deserted except for construction workers in threes and fours dismantling the decorations. The glitz has faded. The stars are gone.
Well, most of them. Denzel Washington and Chris Pratt are the last men standing in this tumbleweed town. In the street, their faces loom menacingly out of the posters for the remake of The Magnificent Seven, in which an ethnically diverse cast of outlaws and miscreants defend oppressed townsfolk from a brutal tyrant. Seated at a table in a hotel room, the actors appear somewhat less than magnificent.
- 9/15/2016
- by Ryan Gilbey
- The Guardian - Film News
The Chicago-based musical drama Empire, about a former drug dealer who used his criminal fortune to become a music mogul, gets off to a not-terrible start. But not-terrible isn’t enough to ignite enthusiasm — especially when you’re watching great actors in great clothes perform or supervise original Timbaland music, and wondering why the damned thing isn’t more exciting.In Empire, which premieres tonight on Fox at 9 p.m., Terrence Howard plays Lucious Lyon, a 2.0 version of the pimp turned rapper he incarnated in the Oscar-nominated Hustle & Flow. The character is nearing the end of a lifelong transformation from criminality to legitimacy: Think American Gangster’s Frank Lucas evolving into Motown’s Berry Gordy, but with Corleone pretensions that are signaled by shots of the star brooding in artfully under-lit rooms. Our tale begins after Lucious is diagnosed with a fatal illness and decides to hand over his recording empire (named Empire,...
- 1/7/2015
- by Matt Zoller Seitz
- Vulture
Johnny Depp was recently photographed in full prosthetics to play real-life Boston gangster James 'Whitey' Bulger in the upcoming movie Black Mass.
The 50-year-old actor was wearing a balding wig cap, fake teeth, a blue open shirt with a gold chain, and a black leather jacket as he shot the film's final scenes in Lynn, Massachusetts.
Benedict Cumberbatch recently joined the cast as Whitey Bulger's brother Billy Bulger, along with Parks and Recreation's Adam Scott, who is reported to be playing FBI agent Robert Fitzpatrick.
The Scott Cooper-directed crime drama is due for release in cinemas on September 18, 2015.
Bulger spent 16 years at large and 12 years on the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list before he was arrested in June 2011, aged 81. Prosecutors indicted him for 19 murders and he is currently serving two life terms.
Here are 9 other actors morphing into some of the world's most notorious real-life gangsters below:...
The 50-year-old actor was wearing a balding wig cap, fake teeth, a blue open shirt with a gold chain, and a black leather jacket as he shot the film's final scenes in Lynn, Massachusetts.
Benedict Cumberbatch recently joined the cast as Whitey Bulger's brother Billy Bulger, along with Parks and Recreation's Adam Scott, who is reported to be playing FBI agent Robert Fitzpatrick.
The Scott Cooper-directed crime drama is due for release in cinemas on September 18, 2015.
Bulger spent 16 years at large and 12 years on the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list before he was arrested in June 2011, aged 81. Prosecutors indicted him for 19 murders and he is currently serving two life terms.
Here are 9 other actors morphing into some of the world's most notorious real-life gangsters below:...
- 7/23/2014
- Digital Spy
Curtis Jackson, a.k.a. 50 Cent, really wanted to be in American Gangster. Just yesterday a tape surfaced of him auditioning for the role of Frank Lucas' brother Huey Lucas (the role that ultimately went to Chiwetel Ejiofor). The whole thing is about the level of acting we've come to expect from his films, but the delivery makes it a bit more hilarious. My personal highlight is the sad pout at 2:50.
- 10/23/2013
- by Mick Joest
- GeekTyrant
Courtesy of Defamer.com, here's a look at Curtis '50 Cent' Jackson's audition tape for American Gangster - the 2007 drama directed by Ridley Scott, based on the criminal career of gangster and drug lord Frank Lucas, which starred Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe. Jackson is said to have auditioned for the role that Chiwetel Ejiofor played in the film - Huey Lucas, one of Frank Lucas' brothers, who helped run his drug empire. When this audition tape was made, Jackson's only acting credit was in 2005's Get Rich Or Die Trying - years before his 10-picture, $200 million agreement with George Furla's Hedge Fund Film Partners, via...
- 10/23/2013
- by Natasha Greeves
- ShadowAndAct
This week the former star of "Harry Potter" gets hotter as the squeaky-clean Emma Watson shows off her inner bad girl in Sofia Coppola's "The Bling Ring," where her character Nicki commits a series of robberies against celebs like Paris Hilton. For the 23-year-old Watson, who shot to fame as goodie-two-shoes wizard Hermione Granger in the "Potter" movies, this role marks a distinct departure from both her on-screen and real-life images. The only thing more shocking would be if Lindsay Lohan maintained sobriety for six months.
While we're all hoping young Ivy Leaguer Watson doesn't follow in the Lohan mold and quit Brown University for the School of Hard Knocks, let's take a look at some other actors who shed their media-sanctioned image to take on roles nobody saw coming. From Tom Cruise going bad to Jennifer Aniston going perv, these actors played against type for keeps.
9. Tom Cruise,...
While we're all hoping young Ivy Leaguer Watson doesn't follow in the Lohan mold and quit Brown University for the School of Hard Knocks, let's take a look at some other actors who shed their media-sanctioned image to take on roles nobody saw coming. From Tom Cruise going bad to Jennifer Aniston going perv, these actors played against type for keeps.
9. Tom Cruise,...
- 6/11/2013
- by Max Evry
- NextMovie
The son of notorious 1970s drug lord Frank Lucas, a wannabe rapper, is suing the New York Police Department for excessive force and harassment following an arrest on Staten Island.
Frank Lucas Jr., whose father was portrayed by Denzel Washington in the film American Gangster, claims he was a victim of racial profiling in March, when police discovered marijuana in a vehicle driven by his manager, who is white.
Lucas claims that police officers hurled insults at him when they discovered the identity of his father.
The aspiring rapper tells the New York Daily News, "I have no desire to be American Gangster Jr. As far as I'm concerned, I'm definitely not proud of a lot of things my father did to rise out of his circumstances."
Lucas and his manager were charged with misdemeanour possession of marijuana. They pleaded guilty to the charges after spending two nights behind bars.
Frank Lucas Jr., whose father was portrayed by Denzel Washington in the film American Gangster, claims he was a victim of racial profiling in March, when police discovered marijuana in a vehicle driven by his manager, who is white.
Lucas claims that police officers hurled insults at him when they discovered the identity of his father.
The aspiring rapper tells the New York Daily News, "I have no desire to be American Gangster Jr. As far as I'm concerned, I'm definitely not proud of a lot of things my father did to rise out of his circumstances."
Lucas and his manager were charged with misdemeanour possession of marijuana. They pleaded guilty to the charges after spending two nights behind bars.
- 4/17/2008
- WENN
What all this nostalgia is about for 1970s Harlem drug lords is hard to say, but Universal will release American Gangster, a fictionalized portrait of heroin kingpin Frank Lucas, just days after Magnolia comes out with Mr. Untouchable, Marc Levin's documentary on the original black Godfather, Nicky Barnes, from that same era. Barnes himself, now in the Witness Protection Program, tells his story, assisted by a talking-heads squad of lawyers, DEA agents, informants, journalists, hustlers, his ex-wife and members of Barnes' drug council, whom he ratted out after he was sent to prison.
It's undeniably fascinating, but you might want to take a shower after hanging out with this unsavory bunch. Boxoffice looks weak, with possibly better results in DVD and cable.
The problem is that Levin provides no real point of view. Indeed, he seems much too taken with all the surface gloss and displays little interest in the socioeconomic background that gave the rise to this particularly odious Mr. Big. Levin perhaps can claim that he lets people hang themselves with their own words. And ironies like the '70s black youth who sees Barnes, not Yankees slugger Reggie Jackson, as his "hero" are duly noted, then the movie moves on.
The real irony is that it was not a cop, informer or DOJ attorney who tripped up Barnes but a magazine article. When the New York Times put Barnes on its magazine cover in 1977, dressed like a superstar, with the headline "Mister Untouchable", he was a sitting duck. President Carter himself ordered the all-out effort to change his wardrobe to prison stripes.
Barnes and his fellow gangsters all read Machiavelli's The Prince from cover to cover while serving prison stints in the late '60s and absorbed that system to power. It worked for a while, though the film is light on details. Eventually, Barnes -- an ex-junkie, as were many of his lieutenants -- wallowed in jewelry, clothes, women and champagne as heroin brought in $72 million annually. The Italian Mafia trained and trusted him. In turn, Barnes modeled his organization along traditional Mafia lines, creating his own black crime family known as the Council.
Levin shot interviews with Barnes for several days in an undisclosed location. (He has a $1 million contract out on his life.) His face is in shadows, and the camera mostly focuses on his hands, featuring a gold watch and one large diamond ring. On the table are props: champagne in one shot, a single bullet in another and a pile of money or (probably fake) heroin in others.
Those few members not incarcerated for life, which includes ex-wife Thelma Grant and Council member "Jazz" Hayden, tell their versions of the story of crime, punishment and revenge. The theme from "Superfly" and other appropriate music of the era plays in the background. Usage of archival footage is mostly unimaginative, and the repetition of photos further testifies to the film's visual dullness.
Key points pass by too quickly. That these gangsters called themselves Muslims is not further explored. Nor is Barnes' inability to answer whether he was a tool for white men. Jazz makes the outrageous claim that when the Barnes family handed out money or food to the community, "these guys cared about Harlem." What they cared about was enslaving the community to their drugs.
MR. UNTOUCHABLE
Magnolia Pictures
HDNet Films in association with Damon Dash Enterprises and Blowback Prods.
Credits:
Director: Marc Levin
Producers: Mary-Jane Robinson, Alex Gibney, Jason Kliot, Joanna Vicente
Executive producers: Todd Wagner, Mark Cuban
Director of photography: Henry Adebonojo
Music: Hi-Tek
Editors: Emir Lewis, Daniel Praid
Running time -- 90 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
It's undeniably fascinating, but you might want to take a shower after hanging out with this unsavory bunch. Boxoffice looks weak, with possibly better results in DVD and cable.
The problem is that Levin provides no real point of view. Indeed, he seems much too taken with all the surface gloss and displays little interest in the socioeconomic background that gave the rise to this particularly odious Mr. Big. Levin perhaps can claim that he lets people hang themselves with their own words. And ironies like the '70s black youth who sees Barnes, not Yankees slugger Reggie Jackson, as his "hero" are duly noted, then the movie moves on.
The real irony is that it was not a cop, informer or DOJ attorney who tripped up Barnes but a magazine article. When the New York Times put Barnes on its magazine cover in 1977, dressed like a superstar, with the headline "Mister Untouchable", he was a sitting duck. President Carter himself ordered the all-out effort to change his wardrobe to prison stripes.
Barnes and his fellow gangsters all read Machiavelli's The Prince from cover to cover while serving prison stints in the late '60s and absorbed that system to power. It worked for a while, though the film is light on details. Eventually, Barnes -- an ex-junkie, as were many of his lieutenants -- wallowed in jewelry, clothes, women and champagne as heroin brought in $72 million annually. The Italian Mafia trained and trusted him. In turn, Barnes modeled his organization along traditional Mafia lines, creating his own black crime family known as the Council.
Levin shot interviews with Barnes for several days in an undisclosed location. (He has a $1 million contract out on his life.) His face is in shadows, and the camera mostly focuses on his hands, featuring a gold watch and one large diamond ring. On the table are props: champagne in one shot, a single bullet in another and a pile of money or (probably fake) heroin in others.
Those few members not incarcerated for life, which includes ex-wife Thelma Grant and Council member "Jazz" Hayden, tell their versions of the story of crime, punishment and revenge. The theme from "Superfly" and other appropriate music of the era plays in the background. Usage of archival footage is mostly unimaginative, and the repetition of photos further testifies to the film's visual dullness.
Key points pass by too quickly. That these gangsters called themselves Muslims is not further explored. Nor is Barnes' inability to answer whether he was a tool for white men. Jazz makes the outrageous claim that when the Barnes family handed out money or food to the community, "these guys cared about Harlem." What they cared about was enslaving the community to their drugs.
MR. UNTOUCHABLE
Magnolia Pictures
HDNet Films in association with Damon Dash Enterprises and Blowback Prods.
Credits:
Director: Marc Levin
Producers: Mary-Jane Robinson, Alex Gibney, Jason Kliot, Joanna Vicente
Executive producers: Todd Wagner, Mark Cuban
Director of photography: Henry Adebonojo
Music: Hi-Tek
Editors: Emir Lewis, Daniel Praid
Running time -- 90 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
- 10/26/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
This review was written for the theatrical release of "American Gangster".The title is catchy but misleading. Frank Lucas was less an "American Gangster" than an original Old Gangster in sable, a caricature in the tradition of '70s blaxploitation flicks.
He is in fact a real-life character, an apparently highly attractive person -- likable even -- who made millions by killing people and ruining lives with the powdered death of heroin. Going up against this all-powerful yet ghostly figure who operates outside the old Mafia networks, is Richie Roberts, an incorruptible cop from the street who is determined put him in prison. Director Ridley Scott takes on these familiar subjects, themes and characters with a keen eye for the social fabric, false assumptions, suffocating corruption and vivid personalities that make such a story worth retelling.
So this is a gangster movie focused on character rather than action and on the intricacies of people's backgrounds, strategies and motivations. Whether it means to, the film plays off a clutch of old movies, from "The Godfather" and "Serpico" to "Superfly" and "Shaft". But Scott and writer Steven Zaillian make certain their Old Gangster is original and true to himself and his times rather than a concoction of movie fiction. Consequently, the movie is smooth and smart enough to attract a significant audience beyond the considerable fan base of its stars, Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe.
You do sense in this movie that its principals are returning to safe harbor. After a discouraging foray into feeble comedy by Scott and Crowe ("A Good Year") and Gothic Southern melodrama for Zaillian ("All the King's Men"), these artists scramble back to an emotional naturalism more aligned to their sensibilities. Even for Washington, who seldom makes a false step careerwise, the film represents a welcome return to the larger-than-life villainy he performed so well in 2001's "Training Day".
Zaillian, working from Mark Jacobson's magazine portrait of Lucas -- a heroin kingpin of Harlem in the late '60s and early '70s -- sets two men on a collision course. Lucas (Washington), a country lad from North Carolina, is the nearly invisible driver and right-hand man to Ellsworth "Bumpy" Johnson, the most famous of Harlem gangsters. (So famous that this is his fourth movie reincarnation. Moses Gunn played him in "Shaft", and Lawrence Fishburne twice in "The Cotton Club" and "Hoodlum".) When Bumpy dies in his arms, Frank moves into the vacuum caused by his death with ruthless guile and a friendly personality.
Meanwhile, Richie Roberts (Crowe), a street-smart drug cop in New Jersey, is Frank's opposite: He can't help alienating everyone who crosses his path. His wife wants a divorce, insisting he leads a life entirely unsuitable to the welfare of their only child. Fellow cops shun him from the moment he brings in nearly a million dollars of recovered drug money. No one can understand why he didn't keep it, which says a lot about the state of policing in the New York/New Jersey area in 1968.
Frank's stroke of genius in the drug trade is to cut out the middleman. He flies to Thailand, takes a boat up the river in the Golden Triangle, makes a deal with a Chinese general, then arranges through an in-law to ship the kilos to New York in military planes coming back from Vietnam. His heroin, branded Blue Magic, hits the street twice as good and half as much as the competition.
It is so pure that dead junkies turn up all over New York. The police are baffled but look in all the wrong places. It never occurs to them that a black man is behind the scheme. Richie, whose whacked-out partner is one of Blue Magic's victims, is given his own task force. He finally targets Frank, but no one will believe him.
Frank flies under the radar. He hires only relatives -- a veritable army of brothers like Huey Lucas (Chiwetel Ejiofor) as well as cousins -- whom he sets up with storefront businesses that function as drug-distribution centers. He maintains a low profile and adheres to a rigid code of conduct. His major weekly outings are to church with his mother (the inestimable Ruby Dee) or to his nightclub with wife Eva (Lymari Nadal), a former Miss Puerto Rico.
Richie's major opposition comes from within. New York's anti-drug task force, the Special Investigations Unit, is rife with corruption. As personified by Detective Trupo (a strutting Josh Brolin), the SIU takes its cut right off the top.
In a story that ranges from the jungles of Harlem and Thailand to North Carolina backwoods, Scott is both hurried and leisurely. He covers a lot of territory, often in low-light levels and with the Vietnam War playing on background TV sets, soaking up the sordid atmosphere, including naked, surgically masked women cutting the dope -- so no one will steal anything -- and celebrities like Joe Lewis cheerfully slumming with the gangsters. The scruffiness of Richie's world makes a brilliant contrast to Frank's penthouse. Yet both worlds teem with moral ambiguity.
If there are no false steps here, there are few highlights either. Such films as "The Godfather" and "Serpico" contain iconic scenes and sequences. "American Gangster" contributes little. It's workmanlike and engrossing, but what sticks in the mind are Frank and Richie, not what anybody does.
The film concocts a final sequence in which the two finally meet and do a deal, the deal that apparently sprung Frank from prison to enjoy his old age: Frank rats out the SIU cops who shook him down, resulting in most of the unit going to prison. Richie ends up leaving the force to become a lawyer and eventually represents Frank. So "American Gangster" finally shows its true colors: It's really a buddy movie.
AMERICAN GANGSTER
Universal
Imagine Entertainment presents a Relativity Media/Scott Free Prods. production
Credits:
Director: Ridley Scott
Screenwriter: Steven Zaillian
Based on an article by: Mark Jacobson
Producers: Brian Grazer, Ridley Scott
Executive producers: Nicholas Pileggi, Steven Zaillian, Branko Lustig, Jim Whitaker, Michael Costigan
Director of photography: Harris Savides
Production designer: Arthur Max
Music: Marc Streitenfeld
Costume designer: Janty Yates
Editor: Pietro Scalia
Cast:
Frank Lucas: Denzel Washington
Richie Roberts: Russell Crowe
Huey Lucas: Chiwetel Ejiofor
Detective Trupo: Josh Brolin
Eva: Lymari Nadal
Lou: Ted Levine
Nate: Roger Guenveur Smith
Freddie Spearman: John Hawkes
Moses Jones: RZA
Nickey Barnes: Cuba Gooding Jr.
Dominic: Armand Assante
Mama Lucas: Rudy Dee
Running time -- 157 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
He is in fact a real-life character, an apparently highly attractive person -- likable even -- who made millions by killing people and ruining lives with the powdered death of heroin. Going up against this all-powerful yet ghostly figure who operates outside the old Mafia networks, is Richie Roberts, an incorruptible cop from the street who is determined put him in prison. Director Ridley Scott takes on these familiar subjects, themes and characters with a keen eye for the social fabric, false assumptions, suffocating corruption and vivid personalities that make such a story worth retelling.
So this is a gangster movie focused on character rather than action and on the intricacies of people's backgrounds, strategies and motivations. Whether it means to, the film plays off a clutch of old movies, from "The Godfather" and "Serpico" to "Superfly" and "Shaft". But Scott and writer Steven Zaillian make certain their Old Gangster is original and true to himself and his times rather than a concoction of movie fiction. Consequently, the movie is smooth and smart enough to attract a significant audience beyond the considerable fan base of its stars, Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe.
You do sense in this movie that its principals are returning to safe harbor. After a discouraging foray into feeble comedy by Scott and Crowe ("A Good Year") and Gothic Southern melodrama for Zaillian ("All the King's Men"), these artists scramble back to an emotional naturalism more aligned to their sensibilities. Even for Washington, who seldom makes a false step careerwise, the film represents a welcome return to the larger-than-life villainy he performed so well in 2001's "Training Day".
Zaillian, working from Mark Jacobson's magazine portrait of Lucas -- a heroin kingpin of Harlem in the late '60s and early '70s -- sets two men on a collision course. Lucas (Washington), a country lad from North Carolina, is the nearly invisible driver and right-hand man to Ellsworth "Bumpy" Johnson, the most famous of Harlem gangsters. (So famous that this is his fourth movie reincarnation. Moses Gunn played him in "Shaft", and Lawrence Fishburne twice in "The Cotton Club" and "Hoodlum".) When Bumpy dies in his arms, Frank moves into the vacuum caused by his death with ruthless guile and a friendly personality.
Meanwhile, Richie Roberts (Crowe), a street-smart drug cop in New Jersey, is Frank's opposite: He can't help alienating everyone who crosses his path. His wife wants a divorce, insisting he leads a life entirely unsuitable to the welfare of their only child. Fellow cops shun him from the moment he brings in nearly a million dollars of recovered drug money. No one can understand why he didn't keep it, which says a lot about the state of policing in the New York/New Jersey area in 1968.
Frank's stroke of genius in the drug trade is to cut out the middleman. He flies to Thailand, takes a boat up the river in the Golden Triangle, makes a deal with a Chinese general, then arranges through an in-law to ship the kilos to New York in military planes coming back from Vietnam. His heroin, branded Blue Magic, hits the street twice as good and half as much as the competition.
It is so pure that dead junkies turn up all over New York. The police are baffled but look in all the wrong places. It never occurs to them that a black man is behind the scheme. Richie, whose whacked-out partner is one of Blue Magic's victims, is given his own task force. He finally targets Frank, but no one will believe him.
Frank flies under the radar. He hires only relatives -- a veritable army of brothers like Huey Lucas (Chiwetel Ejiofor) as well as cousins -- whom he sets up with storefront businesses that function as drug-distribution centers. He maintains a low profile and adheres to a rigid code of conduct. His major weekly outings are to church with his mother (the inestimable Ruby Dee) or to his nightclub with wife Eva (Lymari Nadal), a former Miss Puerto Rico.
Richie's major opposition comes from within. New York's anti-drug task force, the Special Investigations Unit, is rife with corruption. As personified by Detective Trupo (a strutting Josh Brolin), the SIU takes its cut right off the top.
In a story that ranges from the jungles of Harlem and Thailand to North Carolina backwoods, Scott is both hurried and leisurely. He covers a lot of territory, often in low-light levels and with the Vietnam War playing on background TV sets, soaking up the sordid atmosphere, including naked, surgically masked women cutting the dope -- so no one will steal anything -- and celebrities like Joe Lewis cheerfully slumming with the gangsters. The scruffiness of Richie's world makes a brilliant contrast to Frank's penthouse. Yet both worlds teem with moral ambiguity.
If there are no false steps here, there are few highlights either. Such films as "The Godfather" and "Serpico" contain iconic scenes and sequences. "American Gangster" contributes little. It's workmanlike and engrossing, but what sticks in the mind are Frank and Richie, not what anybody does.
The film concocts a final sequence in which the two finally meet and do a deal, the deal that apparently sprung Frank from prison to enjoy his old age: Frank rats out the SIU cops who shook him down, resulting in most of the unit going to prison. Richie ends up leaving the force to become a lawyer and eventually represents Frank. So "American Gangster" finally shows its true colors: It's really a buddy movie.
AMERICAN GANGSTER
Universal
Imagine Entertainment presents a Relativity Media/Scott Free Prods. production
Credits:
Director: Ridley Scott
Screenwriter: Steven Zaillian
Based on an article by: Mark Jacobson
Producers: Brian Grazer, Ridley Scott
Executive producers: Nicholas Pileggi, Steven Zaillian, Branko Lustig, Jim Whitaker, Michael Costigan
Director of photography: Harris Savides
Production designer: Arthur Max
Music: Marc Streitenfeld
Costume designer: Janty Yates
Editor: Pietro Scalia
Cast:
Frank Lucas: Denzel Washington
Richie Roberts: Russell Crowe
Huey Lucas: Chiwetel Ejiofor
Detective Trupo: Josh Brolin
Eva: Lymari Nadal
Lou: Ted Levine
Nate: Roger Guenveur Smith
Freddie Spearman: John Hawkes
Moses Jones: RZA
Nickey Barnes: Cuba Gooding Jr.
Dominic: Armand Assante
Mama Lucas: Rudy Dee
Running time -- 157 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
- 10/22/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
The title is catchy but misleading. Frank Lucas was less an American Gangster than an original Old Gangster in sable, a caricature in the tradition of '70s blaxploitation flicks.
He is in fact a real-life character, an apparently highly attractive person -- likable even -- who made millions by killing people and ruining lives with the powdered death of heroin. Going up against this all-powerful yet ghostly figure who operates outside the old Mafia networks, is Richie Roberts, an incorruptible cop from the street who is determined put him in prison. Director Ridley Scott takes on these familiar subjects, themes and characters with a keen eye for the social fabric, false assumptions, suffocating corruption and vivid personalities that make such a story worth retelling.
So this is a gangster movie focused on character rather than action and on the intricacies of people's backgrounds, strategies and motivations. Whether it means to, the film plays off a clutch of old movies, from The Godfather and Serpico to Superfly and Shaft. But Scott and writer Steven Zaillian make certain their Old Gangster is original and true to himself and his times rather than a concoction of movie fiction. Consequently, the movie is smooth and smart enough to attract a significant audience beyond the considerable fan base of its stars, Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe.
You do sense in this movie that its principals are returning to safe harbor. After a discouraging foray into feeble comedy by Scott and Crowe (A Good Year) and Gothic Southern melodrama for Zaillian ("All the King's Men"), these artists scramble back to an emotional naturalism more aligned to their sensibilities. Even for Washington, who seldom makes a false step careerwise, the film represents a welcome return to the larger-than-life villainy he performed so well in 2001's Training Day.
Zaillian, working from Mark Jacobson's magazine portrait of Lucas -- a heroin kingpin of Harlem in the late '60s and early '70s -- sets two men on a collision course. Lucas (Washington), a country lad from North Carolina, is the nearly invisible driver and right-hand man to Ellsworth Bumpy Johnson, the most famous of Harlem gangsters. (So famous that this is his fourth movie reincarnation. Moses Gunn played him in Shaft, and Lawrence Fishburne twice in The Cotton Club and Hoodlum.) When Bumpy dies in his arms, Frank moves into the vacuum caused by his death with ruthless guile and a friendly personality.
Meanwhile, Richie Roberts (Crowe), a street-smart drug cop in New Jersey, is Frank's opposite: He can't help alienating everyone who crosses his path. His wife wants a divorce, insisting he leads a life entirely unsuitable to the welfare of their only child. Fellow cops shun him from the moment he brings in nearly a million dollars of recovered drug money. No one can understand why he didn't keep it, which says a lot about the state of policing in the New York/New Jersey area in 1968.
Frank's stroke of genius in the drug trade is to cut out the middleman. He flies to Thailand, takes a boat up the river in the Golden Triangle, makes a deal with a Chinese general, then arranges through an in-law to ship the kilos to New York in military planes coming back from Vietnam. His heroin, branded Blue Magic, hits the street twice as good and half as much as the competition.
It is so pure that dead junkies turn up all over New York. The police are baffled but look in all the wrong places. It never occurs to them that a black man is behind the scheme. Richie, whose whacked-out partner is one of Blue Magic's victims, is given his own task force. He finally targets Frank, but no one will believe him.
Frank flies under the radar. He hires only relatives -- a veritable army of brothers like Huey Lucas (Chiwetel Ejiofor) as well as cousins -- whom he sets up with storefront businesses that function as drug-distribution centers. He maintains a low profile and adheres to a rigid code of conduct. His major weekly outings are to church with his mother (the inestimable Ruby Dee) or to his nightclub with wife Eva (Lymari Nadal), a former Miss Puerto Rico.
Richie's major opposition comes from within. New York's anti-drug task force, the Special Investigations Unit, is rife with corruption. As personified by Detective Trupo (a strutting Josh Brolin), the SIU takes its cut right off the top.
In a story that ranges from the jungles of Harlem and Thailand to North Carolina backwoods, Scott is both hurried and leisurely. He covers a lot of territory, often in low-light levels and with the Vietnam War playing on background TV sets, soaking up the sordid atmosphere, including naked, surgically masked women cutting the dope -- so no one will steal anything -- and celebrities like Joe Lewis cheerfully slumming with the gangsters. The scruffiness of Richie's world makes a brilliant contrast to Frank's penthouse. Yet both worlds teem with moral ambiguity.
If there are no false steps here, there are few highlights either. Such films as The Godfather and Serpico contain iconic scenes and sequences. American Gangster contributes little. It's workmanlike and engrossing, but what sticks in the mind are Frank and Richie, not what anybody does.
The film concocts a final sequence in which the two finally meet and do a deal, the deal that apparently sprung Frank from prison to enjoy his old age: Frank rats out the SIU cops who shook him down, resulting in most of the unit going to prison. Richie ends up leaving the force to become a lawyer and eventually represents Frank. So American Gangster finally shows its true colors: It's really a buddy movie.
AMERICAN GANGSTER
Universal
Imagine Entertainment presents a Relativity Media/Scott Free Prods. production
Credits:
Director: Ridley Scott
Screenwriter: Steven Zaillian
Based on an article by: Mark Jacobson
Producers: Brian Grazer, Ridley Scott
Executive producers: Nicholas Pileggi, Steven Zaillian, Branko Lustig, Jim Whitaker, Michael Costigan
Director of photography: Harris Savides
Production designer: Arthur Max
Music: Marc Streitenfeld
Costume designer: Janty Yates
Editor: Pietro Scalia
Cast:
Frank Lucas: Denzel Washington
Richie Roberts: Russell Crowe
Huey Lucas: Chiwetel Ejiofor
Detective Trupo: Josh Brolin
Eva: Lymari Nadal
Lou: Ted Levine
Nate: Roger Guenveur Smith
Freddie Spearman: John Hawkes
Moses Jones: RZA
Nickey Barnes: Cuba Gooding Jr.
Dominic: Armand Assante
Mama Lucas: Rudy Dee
Running time -- 157 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
He is in fact a real-life character, an apparently highly attractive person -- likable even -- who made millions by killing people and ruining lives with the powdered death of heroin. Going up against this all-powerful yet ghostly figure who operates outside the old Mafia networks, is Richie Roberts, an incorruptible cop from the street who is determined put him in prison. Director Ridley Scott takes on these familiar subjects, themes and characters with a keen eye for the social fabric, false assumptions, suffocating corruption and vivid personalities that make such a story worth retelling.
So this is a gangster movie focused on character rather than action and on the intricacies of people's backgrounds, strategies and motivations. Whether it means to, the film plays off a clutch of old movies, from The Godfather and Serpico to Superfly and Shaft. But Scott and writer Steven Zaillian make certain their Old Gangster is original and true to himself and his times rather than a concoction of movie fiction. Consequently, the movie is smooth and smart enough to attract a significant audience beyond the considerable fan base of its stars, Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe.
You do sense in this movie that its principals are returning to safe harbor. After a discouraging foray into feeble comedy by Scott and Crowe (A Good Year) and Gothic Southern melodrama for Zaillian ("All the King's Men"), these artists scramble back to an emotional naturalism more aligned to their sensibilities. Even for Washington, who seldom makes a false step careerwise, the film represents a welcome return to the larger-than-life villainy he performed so well in 2001's Training Day.
Zaillian, working from Mark Jacobson's magazine portrait of Lucas -- a heroin kingpin of Harlem in the late '60s and early '70s -- sets two men on a collision course. Lucas (Washington), a country lad from North Carolina, is the nearly invisible driver and right-hand man to Ellsworth Bumpy Johnson, the most famous of Harlem gangsters. (So famous that this is his fourth movie reincarnation. Moses Gunn played him in Shaft, and Lawrence Fishburne twice in The Cotton Club and Hoodlum.) When Bumpy dies in his arms, Frank moves into the vacuum caused by his death with ruthless guile and a friendly personality.
Meanwhile, Richie Roberts (Crowe), a street-smart drug cop in New Jersey, is Frank's opposite: He can't help alienating everyone who crosses his path. His wife wants a divorce, insisting he leads a life entirely unsuitable to the welfare of their only child. Fellow cops shun him from the moment he brings in nearly a million dollars of recovered drug money. No one can understand why he didn't keep it, which says a lot about the state of policing in the New York/New Jersey area in 1968.
Frank's stroke of genius in the drug trade is to cut out the middleman. He flies to Thailand, takes a boat up the river in the Golden Triangle, makes a deal with a Chinese general, then arranges through an in-law to ship the kilos to New York in military planes coming back from Vietnam. His heroin, branded Blue Magic, hits the street twice as good and half as much as the competition.
It is so pure that dead junkies turn up all over New York. The police are baffled but look in all the wrong places. It never occurs to them that a black man is behind the scheme. Richie, whose whacked-out partner is one of Blue Magic's victims, is given his own task force. He finally targets Frank, but no one will believe him.
Frank flies under the radar. He hires only relatives -- a veritable army of brothers like Huey Lucas (Chiwetel Ejiofor) as well as cousins -- whom he sets up with storefront businesses that function as drug-distribution centers. He maintains a low profile and adheres to a rigid code of conduct. His major weekly outings are to church with his mother (the inestimable Ruby Dee) or to his nightclub with wife Eva (Lymari Nadal), a former Miss Puerto Rico.
Richie's major opposition comes from within. New York's anti-drug task force, the Special Investigations Unit, is rife with corruption. As personified by Detective Trupo (a strutting Josh Brolin), the SIU takes its cut right off the top.
In a story that ranges from the jungles of Harlem and Thailand to North Carolina backwoods, Scott is both hurried and leisurely. He covers a lot of territory, often in low-light levels and with the Vietnam War playing on background TV sets, soaking up the sordid atmosphere, including naked, surgically masked women cutting the dope -- so no one will steal anything -- and celebrities like Joe Lewis cheerfully slumming with the gangsters. The scruffiness of Richie's world makes a brilliant contrast to Frank's penthouse. Yet both worlds teem with moral ambiguity.
If there are no false steps here, there are few highlights either. Such films as The Godfather and Serpico contain iconic scenes and sequences. American Gangster contributes little. It's workmanlike and engrossing, but what sticks in the mind are Frank and Richie, not what anybody does.
The film concocts a final sequence in which the two finally meet and do a deal, the deal that apparently sprung Frank from prison to enjoy his old age: Frank rats out the SIU cops who shook him down, resulting in most of the unit going to prison. Richie ends up leaving the force to become a lawyer and eventually represents Frank. So American Gangster finally shows its true colors: It's really a buddy movie.
AMERICAN GANGSTER
Universal
Imagine Entertainment presents a Relativity Media/Scott Free Prods. production
Credits:
Director: Ridley Scott
Screenwriter: Steven Zaillian
Based on an article by: Mark Jacobson
Producers: Brian Grazer, Ridley Scott
Executive producers: Nicholas Pileggi, Steven Zaillian, Branko Lustig, Jim Whitaker, Michael Costigan
Director of photography: Harris Savides
Production designer: Arthur Max
Music: Marc Streitenfeld
Costume designer: Janty Yates
Editor: Pietro Scalia
Cast:
Frank Lucas: Denzel Washington
Richie Roberts: Russell Crowe
Huey Lucas: Chiwetel Ejiofor
Detective Trupo: Josh Brolin
Eva: Lymari Nadal
Lou: Ted Levine
Nate: Roger Guenveur Smith
Freddie Spearman: John Hawkes
Moses Jones: RZA
Nickey Barnes: Cuba Gooding Jr.
Dominic: Armand Assante
Mama Lucas: Rudy Dee
Running time -- 157 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
- 10/22/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Chiwetel Ejiofor, RZA and John Ortiz have joined the cast of American Gangster, Imagine's 1970s crime drama starring Russell Crowe and Denzel Washington that Ridley Scott is directing for Universal Pictures. Rappers-turned-actors T.I. and Common, as well as Ted Levine, John Hawkes and Yul Vazquez also have been cast. The movie is based on the life of drug kingpin-turned-informant Frank Lucas (Washington), who shipped heroin to the U.S. in the coffins of soldiers killed in Vietnam. Lucas was brought to justice by lawman Richie Roberts (Crowe). The two then worked together to expose the crooked cops and foreign nationals. Ejiofor will play Washington's brother, who helps Frank run his heroin empire.
- 8/22/2006
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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