Enemies in an urban setting

'American Gangster' shows riveting contrast between two adversaries

Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington) is a man who was mentored by a crime boss, groomed for a position of power in Harlem. Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe) is Lucas's  opponent, a workaholic narcotics agent without regard for the thin blue line. He is incorruptible. Roberts is losing his wife and kid in a custody battle, but he fights harder to keep tabs on criminals. Lucas is coming up the food chain a mile a minute, but he will risk everything for his loved ones, which in the end proved to be his weakness.

Cinematically, viewers are cued to the contrast between the two adversaries.

As the story follows the rise of Lucas, there is a visual aura around him. The colors pop, the sound is crisp, and everything is in the right place. Lucas is always dressed as though he was the CEO of a successful business. He points out the danger of loud people in loud clothes to the young men in his criminal entourage.

When the camera follows Roberts, life is drab. There is a glare, his hair is frizzy, and colors are washed out. Roberts' wardrobe seems to be whatever clothes have not fallen apart in the wash. It is as if to say Lucas's life in the gritty underworld is deceptively more picturesque than the brightness of life in the daytime.

Lucas is the latest in a string of darker roles for Washington, who typically played  altruistic characters earlier in his career. He broke out of that pattern with complex characters like Alonzo (Training Day) and John Quincy Archibald (John Q.), roles that venture into a grayer idea of right and wrong.

This is a real story based on the life of a narcotics king in Harlem. The terrible things that happen in American Gangster are not Hollywood hype or glorified violence to sell. This is the darkness of our urban cities, where an ongoing war with many casualties shows no end in sight. It is the scary story of a man who, in chasing after the American dream, became an American Gangster.

Universal's American Gangster opened November 2, 2007