The movie is set in the tumultuous time frame between 1968 and 1974 and tells the true story of Frank Lucas, who moved from being driver to New York’s inner city gangster Bumpy Jackson to becoming the heroin king of Harlem.

He was the first African-American to cut the middleman, fly out to Vietnam at the height of the war and smuggle pure heroin in the coffins of America’s finest.

On Lucas’s trail is doughty cop Richie Roberts, who is something of a legend for having turned in a million dollars in unmarked currency. His personal life is full of lies, cheating and fighting long drawn out custody battles with his embittered wife. American Gangster, however, does not achieve the epic status of Coppola’s The Godfather, the intensely personal sin/redemption look at the mean streets that Scorsese achieves or even the grand guignol of De Palma’s magnificent car wreck Scarface.

Then there is the problem with Lucas’s character — who is archetypical to the point of being non-relatable. He has his sharp suits, loves his mum, his cousins, his wife and donates generously to charity but it is difficult to see what makes him tick. His counterpart, Roberts, seems better etched out as he struggles to keep his son and sits for the bar exam even though he has a horror of public speaking. The grand climax where they face off is also rather tepid as they do not seem to be on either side of the fence.

MINI

ANTHIKAD-CHHIBBER

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