Frank Lucas (played by Denzel Washington) was a real Harlem gangster in the late 1960's and 1970's. In the movie as in life, he murders people by the dozens and feeds incredibly ruinous drugs to the poorest and most desperate people in society. But he also hands out free turkies on Thanksgiving and tries to make sure that the junkies are getting a pure product. This is what you might call moral complexity... if you were a dipshit.

Welcome to the wonderful world of Hollywood morality where good and evil are measured not by one's deeds, but by one's charisma—it’s been this way since Fatty Arbuckle. Sure, Lucas is a cold blooded killer who makes millions off the suffering and addiction of others. But gee-whiz, he's just so handsome and charming! I mean look - he bought his poor mother a house and his wife is so pretty that she must be a good person. I assured myself that the audience couldn't possibly be idiotic enough to buy into it. I was wrong. Early in the movie, the charismatic Frank Lucas burns one man alive and shoots another in the face. Not a peep. Later, he bashes a man's head inside a piano. Several people laughed. Toward the end, a decidedly uncharismatic cop shoots a dog. At least three people seated near me gasped in horror. Terrific.

Lucas’s rise to power is paralleled by the career of Essex County, NJ, cop Richie Roberts (Russel Crowe). Early in the movie we see Richie and his partner turn in a million dollars as evidence, which alienates them from the whole rest of cop society who would have respected them more if they’d pocketed at least most of it. I can’t remember his partner’s name, but like most movie cop partners, it may as well have been “Dead Meat.” They really could have saved time by just shooting this guy at his audition. All alone in the world, Richie is put in charge of a special federal anti-drug strike force. They set about to some real police work: tacking photographs of suspects to a big cork board. After seeing Lucas wearing a furry bowler, Roberts jumps to the logical conclusion: he’s the boss of all drug dealers in the New York area (his picture goes right to the top of the board). Unfortunately, a furry bowler isn’t enough for our picky, liberal justice system, so Roberts must collect evidence, which sets the climactic struggle into motion.

In the end, Lucas and Roberts discover that whatever their paths through lives, they are both handsome and charming men – should they really be fighting each other? Not when there’s boorish, ugly Italian gangsters and crooked cops for Lucas to turn on. So Lucas begins to sing (only after asserting that he’s no rat, the film makers wouldn't want to ruin the real Frank Lucas's street cred) and the bad cops start to go down. Lead bad-cop Detective Trupo (played by Josh “Goonies” Brolin) takes the easy way out and blows his brains out. Not that I condone crooked police, but do they really deserve a fate worse than the guy who bought them off while destroying countless lives? Apparently, the judge who sentenced Lucas to 15 lousy years in prison thought so.

In the end, this movie is as much or more of an indictment of the NYPD than it is of any drug lord. It is interesting to note that Russel Crowe was once arrested by New York's finest after smashing a hotel employee in the face with a telephone. In Crowe's defense, the employee provoked him by asking him if he'd like turndown service while he was drunk. After the incident, an indignant Crowe lashed out against the hotel and the police force for their response to his own outlandish behavior. American Gangster's half-assed slap at the NYPD--or at least the NYPD of 30 years ago--is very likely the closest he's going to get to "revenge." Let's hope he's satisfied.

--Dano