Frank Lucas Criminal or Hero?

Compared to last week’s analysis of the infamous Hannibal ‘The Cannibal’ Lector, this week we see a much different side to criminal activity and behavior through the Drug Kingpin of New York Frank Lucas whose life was portrayed in American Gangster by Ridley Scott. Throughout this film we see the rise and fall of Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington) and how his success as drug lord effects his psyche, relationships and inevitably his break down. Frank Lucas began at the bottom of the chain, a driver for notorious gangster Bumpy Johnson who in the first scene of the film describes how the market has changes and provides Frank with his business plan to cut out the middle man and buy direct from the supplier.

‘Bumpy Johnson: See what I mean? Shit. I mean, what right do they have, of cutting out the suppliers? Pushing out all the middlemen. Buying direct from the manufacturer. Sony this. Toshiba that.’ 

Bumpy says this just before dying in a high end technology store, upon Bumpy’s death Frank takes it upon himself to continue Bumpy’s legacy by following his dying words and cutting out the middle man.

Frank travels to Vietnam and visits one of his associates who is married to one of his cousins, he is introduced to a heroin dealer who makes kilos a day and ships to America, Frank then sets up an agreement to receive hundreds of kilos of pure heroin a week, this is cutting out the middleman and driving his profits through the roof. Frank has instant success and we begin to see exactly how the mind of a drug lord, director Ridley Scott portrays Frank as a cool, calm and collected man who is always in control of his actions but with the heat from detective Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe) becoming unbearable we begin to see his mind and concentration melt, with many different outburst of anger on his enemies and even his family at some points in the film. The height of Frank’s breakdown comes when the DEA raid his family home and as a result his dog is killed, Frank is about to rush out of the home and kill the agents who done this as a rash reaction. It takes his mother to calm him down and she states

‘Mama Lucas: You don’t shoot cops. Even I know that. Eva knows it. The only one who DOESN’T seem to know is you.

Frank Lucas: [ignores her pleas as he escorts her outside] All right, Mama. I’m not going to, I promise you. I’m not going to shoot anyone.’

It seems that the more business crazy Frank becomes the more careless he is and he begins to lose his discrete manner, wearing a $50,000 coat with a $10,000 hat to match to the biggest fight in his era expecting to go unnoticed by the police.

 

Scenes like these are what lead to Frank’s downfall, bringing more and more attention to him and his family.

On the other side of the scale we have Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe) who represents the good and proper side of life and the law. He, unlike many of his colleagues is a straight and in corrupt agent who stumbles across $1,000,000 of unmarked cash and turns it in, thinking he is doing the right thing. The outcome is that he is marked as an outcast and everybody believes that he has taken some money and there was more than initially stated. This only drives him harder to find the supplier of the notorious ‘Blue Magic’ heroin that is destroying the streets of New York. In a way we have the direct opposites of each other through Frank and Richie, Frank representing all that is bad and corrupt with society and Richie being the small ray of hope we have within the police force who is trying to uphold order within the society Frank is corrupting. The time frame the film is set in is the 1970’s which was renound for corruption and the peak of recreational drug use.With countless deaths caused by Frank’s new high potency heroin he does not slow down instead he thrives of how good and dangerous his product is becoming.

‘Frank Lucas: Now, I got no problem with you showin’ up in court tomorrow with your head blown in half.

Detective Richie Roberts: Get in line. That one stretches around the block too.’ 

The glamorisation of crime throughout this film promotes an incorrect lifestyle choice for any child or easily persuaded adult viewing it. Although it is based on factual information it in some ways shows that crime can be good and almost right. Frank is making around $1,000,000 a day through his Drug Empire and organised crime, anybody watching this movie could only dream of that kind of money. The directors and producers of this film and many others associated with this genre must be careful about who is able to access their film as in the wrong hands they could corrupt a lot of young minds.

I feel that there must be stronger enforcement on under age children gaining access to these films, instead of simply placing a sticker on the box, we must put in place a scheme of some kind in order to protect children from picking up the wrong ideas and following potentially dangerous lifestyles. In saying this there are some positives children could pick up from this film by watching Richie Roberts, although he is divorced and has many sexual partners he is seemingly the only good detective in this film.

What can we do to clamp down on underage children viewing this films and any associated films that promote a life of crime as being good and acceptable? Is there any possible way of doing this?