Denzel's Debatable 'Gangster' Behavior

Should he be “admired” for his incredible innovation and for what many call, “beating the white man at his own game”, or be simply seen as a hustler, and cold-blooded killer who took the lives of hundreds of innocent people and destroyed their community in the process?

Denzel plays Frank Lucas. A poor, uneducated black man from the south who became the biggest heroin dealer in Harlem in the early ‘70s. What is called “amazing” is that he, “cut out the middle man” and created his own southeast Asia connection and, in the process, amassed a fortune, reportedly, of over $52 million dollars. Lucas’ heroin-dealing ring in Harlem was called the ‘Country Boys’ that he ran with his five brothers and others from his rural North Carolina hometown.

His exceedingly pure heroin was called “Blue Magic”. During that time, the “best” that users could find was 1-to-3 percent pure. Lucas’ “Blue Magic” was an incredible and extremely dangerous 10 percent! No one had seen anything like it before or experienced a “high” so addictive…and deadly. It became an epidemic and people starting dying. Od'ing with one shot.

Frank Lucas’ “claim to fame”, if you will, was the so-called “Cadaver Connection”. An incredible feat in which the coffins of dead American servicemen being returned from Vietnam would also include a dozen or so kilos of 98% pure heroin!

He also claims to have smuggled heroin inside Henry Kissinger’s plane that was returning from Southeast Asia.

Now, here comes Russell Crowe. He plays the real-life Detective Richie Roberts, the investigator who brought Lucas to justice. A man who is ostracized by his own department when he turns in close to a million dollars of drug money. It was said that cops who took a little on the side, didn’t like other cops making them look bad.
Back to Lucas. How did this small town country boy rise to such prominence in the drug world and, at the same time, fly under the radar of authorities for so long? The answer is part of what made this story so interesting for the likes of a Washington, Crowe, and director Ridley Scott.

In an interview, Federal Judge Sterling Johnson who, in the ‘70s, served as New York City’s Special Narcotics prosecutor sums it up this way: "You know, when we were first investigating him, the FBI, DEA, they didn't think he could pull off that Southeast Asia stuff. They wouldn't let themselves believe an uneducated black man could come up with such a sophisticated smuggling operation. In his sick way, he really did something.”

That “something” was becoming a Black Godfather, of sorts. A coolness and swagger like Tony Soprano and Tony Montana. There is a duality about Frank Lucas. He was brilliant, no doubt. He set up a pipeline that was unprecedented. An uneducated black man who, out of nowhere, rose to build a multi-million dollar empire.
An empire that was built on the backs - and bodies - of his own people.

In an interview, Frank Lucas said that, after seeing his cousin murdered by the Ku Klux Klan right before his eyes, he turned to a life of crime. With his smarts, why didn’t he get a job on Wall Street? He says, at that time, Wall Street would not have even allowed him to be a janitor.

Frank Lucas will never know what he could have become had he channeled his “talent” in a positive direction. What a story it would have been - overcoming oppression and elevating a society through positive means.
We do know, there is no sequel to this story.

“American Gangster” is due in theaters in November 2.