Pubdate: Sun, 9 Dec 2007 Source: Republican-American (Waterbury, CT) Copyright: 2007 American-Republican Inc. Contact: http://www.rep-am.com/about_us/how_to_reach_us/ Website: http://www.rep-am.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/571 Author: John Greenwald Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin) 2 SIDES OF THE SAME HIGH-PROFIT STREET I think it was Mario Puzo, author of "The Godfather" and co-screenwriter on the three "Godfather" movies, who said his Corleone crime family was just another version of American capitalism. Think of the Mafia as an entrepreneurial enterprise doing what all other business organizations do -- supply its customers with products and services they want and need, grow market share, create new business lines and ventures and, most importantly, make as big a profit as possible. Obviously, there's a difference between capitalism and organized crime. The latter supplies illegal goods and services, and it advances its business interest through blackmail, extortion, violence and death. They're mirrored images of each other. Much of the same stuff; different sides of the street. Or, one could look at organized crime another way: It's merely unfettered capitalism, business done without annoying government laws, rules, regulation and taxes. These were some of the thoughts I had after seeing Ridley Scott's epic-like crime and punishment drama, "American Gangster." Unlike its "Godfather" predecessors, which focused on the family drama of the Corleones, "Gangster" focuses on the business of making a fortune by selling heroin in Harlem. The film is based on a real person, Frank Lucas, who grew up dirt poor in North Carolina and built a drug business so large and so successful that eventually he had the Mafia working for him. Lucas applied the first principle of capitalism: buy low, sell high. He made his mark during the Vietnam era, the late '60s and '70s. He figured out how to buy heroin from sources in Southeast Asia's "Golden Triangle"; transport it to the U.S.A. in coffins of American GI's killed in the war; and sell it throughout Harlem and beyond with his own network of dealers. He bribed the American airmen who handled the caskets and lots and lots of cops. Soon enough, he was selling dope that was twice as good as the Mafia's at half the price. The police were looking for Italian-American mobsters, so it took years before they figured out they should look for an African-American one. Another example of the uselessness of racial profiling. In the context of Harlem, Lucas was a character. Tall, handsome, expensively dressed, he went to work everyday looking like the head of a Wall Street brokerage, not some Super Fly pimp. The film portrays him as a supremely disciplined leader, who rarely succumbs to emotional or violent outbursts, unlike Tony Soprano's mob, which had major impulse control problems. As played by Denzel Washington, Lucas comes across cool, suave and worthy of respect, if not admiration. You could regard him as a fine example of an self-made American business man -- unless you know what he did for a living. His counterpoint in the film is narcotics detective, and later prosecutor, Richie Roberts, also a real person. Roberts is as informal, rough around the edges and intuitive as Lucas is formal, smooth and judicious. Roberts also is the oddest cop in the New York metropolitan area in those years. He's an honest one. Early in the film, he finds almost a million dollars in the trunk of a suspect's car. He turns in the money, making him something of a despised figure among other police. Roberts, given an earthy performance by Russell Crowe, is a good match for Lucas. Both are disciplined, detail-oriented leaders, with a skill for sniffing out opportunities. But it still takes ages for Roberts to realize he's been searching for the wrong man behind the powerful new heroin flooding Harlem. The film likes to deal with some of the details of Lucas' business sense. His heroin comes in small glassine packets stamped with the brand name "Blue Magic." He's outraged when he learns another dealer is selling diluted heroin under the same name. This is "trademark infringement" that damages his "brand." As conservative columnist George Will pointed out in his column about the movie, there's a message to this scene: "A drug kingpin can master MBA-speak; the line between commerce and crime is blurry." "American Gangster" tries to put Lucas in some historical perspective. He slips through the enlarging cracks in American society caused by the Vietnam War, the greater tolerance of drugs, and urban decay, which he made worse. Randomly, director Scott inserts into the film shots of people shooting up Lucas' heroin, or being killed by his dope. They may be true, but they're extraneous to the story of Lucas' rise and fall. It's as if a film touting a chemical company's great business success interrupts itself with random shots of babies deformed by spills from its factories, just to prove a secondary point. But perhaps that is the point. George Will recalls a quote from Balzac: "Behind every great fortune there is a crime." And "American Gangster"reminds us that Balzac's still correct, that capitalism and criminality have much in common. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake