Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington) is a heroin drug lord in Harlem during the Vietnam War. Ritchie Roberts (Russell Crowe) is an honest cop who is trying take Lucas down. Lucas is actually smuggling the heroin from Vietnam during the war into the United States . He not only is a heroin dealer, but he takes care of the neighborhood handing out turkeys and shooting people in the face that don’t pay him.

I love gangster movies. After I saw Goodfella’s I wanted to go pistol whip someone. After the Godfather I wanted to go “Fredo” in Vegas. The Departed wanted me to change my mind that Dicaprio is a good actor. This doesn’t quite live up to those movies but it is definitely the next in the lineage for great gangster movies. Denzel is just so cool! I think this might be his best performance. He was such a better bad guy in this than in Training Day. It’s funny I found myself rooting for Denzel’s character and not Crowe’s. I think that is because we like Denzel and Crowe not so much. Anyway, go see it, it is very good and I think we might be talking about this come February.

Rating: Full Price - The next great gangster movie