American Gangster: Dreaming Out of Key

There's a man of about 35 years of age seated comfortably on a couch in front of a television that sits idly in a house snugly ensconced in a New Jersey suburb. He's snoring loudly as is his nightly ritual. His wife will come over soon to nudge him out of his slumber after screaming his name multiple times to no response but louder, elevated snoring. The snoring will escalate into a violent crescendo and then cease abruptly before it silences and starts up again minutes later; as is also a part of his nocturnal routine. The cycle will repeat itself until his wife has had enough and comes to check on him yet again. When she does so, his weighty carcass will slump over into an inert heap. Hours later, after his brother has been phoned and in turn contacted the mother of the man's children for the first time in over half a decade, the children's mother will vanish from the Brooklyn brownstone apartment that she has called home for about as long as she has been apart from the sleeping, snoring man. She will return hours later to her three panicked sons and through streaks of bluish black mascara and a cloud of smeared make up, fatefully announce, "Boys, Daddy's dead."
There's something charming about the devil ain't it? Something so irresistibly sexy about the allure of evil… and all that is taboo. Or maybe that's just it-the taboo itself. For what is taboo but the backwash of the age-old Western war of schismatic ideologue. The leftovers of the tenuous centuries long struggle between so called right and so called wrong, yielding the fertile ground for the very perceptive skew out of which might spring forth such a concept as "forbidden fruit" in the first place. That born fruit being the resultant x-factor of countless dichotomous moralistic equations endlessly rendered under the auspices of the Judeo-Christian mind matrix. Alas, I digress. If Frank Lucas knew his life would inspire such in depth psycho analysis of the ideological archetypes that shaped it, he'd probably… well he probably wouldn't give a damn. The brother was just a hustler trying to make a buck… or 50 million or so to be more precise.
It is said by Frank himself that his path towards paper stacking started long before the end of the reign of his mentor Ellsworth "Bumpy" Johnson who effectively passed him the torch in the rat race of New York City underworld hustlers of the 60's. The quest for cash started as something far deeper, a struggle for survival itself. If it hasn't already made itself embarrassingly clear, from the plethora of ambassadors to choose from, (think: the present hip hop community), niggers are born out of pain. Perhaps this generation has been duped wholesale out of an effective history lesson that might weave together the tapestry of the artistic lineage of Black Americana (lord knows the rappers have been for the most part inept at doing so, for the last decade and running). But long before money, murder and ho's became requisites upon the palette that paints the portrait of Africans in America, the elements that constructed our nature were rooted in a far deeper impetus out of which blossomed much more far reaching aspirations. Low and behold, there was a time when our pundits spoke for our voiceless, when our sages lovingly supplanted the ignorance of our lost denizens with wisdom. But perhaps in the most bizarre sense of democracy the world has seen to date, America's market capitalist sponsored deregulation of societal infrastructure (think: Enron on the energy industry, or corporate interests influencing government strip mining of social services such as public education) ultimately reconfigured our once hierarchical social system of the elite and higher educated of the upper echelon and the undereducated blue collar working mass of the obligatory lower class into a renegade laden winner takes all war torn desert of haves (think: takers, rapist, gangsters, thieves) and have-nots (everyday people, victims). Now anyone can throw their voice into the melee, as long as they have the cash to buy the podium. Just ask George Bush and family.
But decades upon decades ago in the 20th century, not too long after Woodrow Wilson lamented the Federal Reserve Bank's clandestine wholesale purchase of the American government and social system via manipulative litigation (the mob was kinda late on buying judges if you follow) with his mournful confessional, "We have come to be one of the worst ruled; one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world… no longer a government by conviction and the free vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of small groups of dominant men"; and right around the time when Franklin D. Roosevelt died in the hospice of one of said men, one Bernard Baruch, only one of the most powerful bankers of the 20th century (who was also rumored, oddly enough to have shared lovers with the aforementioned, "Bumpy" Johnson); and long before our daily microcosmic social reality became a mirror for the upper echelon of the invisible hands that sculpted this whole mess; before 50 cent became interchangeable with George Bush… or Willie Lynch, slaves mistakable for their masters, and every aspirant American Gangster synonymous with the imperialist titans of patriarchal yesteryear that slaughtered their ancestors to begin with, there was a time when pathos was understood for what it was: madness. Back then, a Paul Robeson might cinematically depict the overseer motif as the self loathing yet machismo laden and ambitious Emperor Jones (50 cent of his day), king of the niggers that he was. A Richard Wright might diagnose our maddened niggers, albeit one dimensionally and a tad superciliously, with an archetype such as Bigger Thomas.
Enter Biggie Smalls… Jay-Z… the new millennial interface of said archetype with its author. The artistic genius of yesteryear's pundits entwined with the barbaric proclivities of the necessary thug. Just imagine Ralph Ellison in that ring of brutes under the barrage of black fists entertaining all those vile flesh hungry white men, but instead of cracking under the pressure as he pleads for civil rights and equality, kicking nigger's asses and taking names first, and then proceeding to spew his philosophical dissertation. Well that might provide a more accurate depiction of today's "black superhero" (as Jay-Z himself terms it). Dually, that little anecdotal framework might provide a more well suited aperture through which one might clearly view American Gangster's antagonist/protagonist Frank Lucas. His caricature and the many street hustlers of his ilk, serve as the blueprint from which today's hip hop carbon copies have been grafted. Somewhat analogous with America's perverse chop-the-nose-to-pretty-the-face approach to "capitalist democracy", this self-conflicted archetype of brazen black manhood has solidified itself as a testament to resilience, tenacity and (dare I say) brilliance at times while simultaneously beating its angry black fists against the oppressive walls of its mirroring environs. Only one thing I'm leaving out. It's impossible to beat your fists bloody upon a mirror without tarnishing your self image.
Enter Frank Lucas, long before the Bigger Thomas of his youth "matures" into the Emperor Jones of his latter years, one must delve into the womb out of which he emerged to begin with; the pain that birthed the nigger. Frank confesses in interviews (one conducted 7 years ago which apparently served as the blueprint for this film) that his flight away from oppression that ultimately led to the road to riches began when he was 14 years old, a fugitive from southern law. In order to understand what put him on the running path to begin with, one must understand what spawned his life of crime. This he attributes to the brutal murder of his 12 year old cousin by North Carolina police which he witnessed when he was only 6 years of age. It was the sight of his not yet teenage cousin being strapped to a tree before both teeth were smashed out and brains blown out, that sewed the seeds of destruction that ultimately spawned the proverbial "I don't give a fuck" nihilism that fueled Frank's journey to street life. It goes without saying that this disposition presaged the collective apathy that subsumed his son's generation of the crack 80's decades later.
At the film's end, when a weathered Frank Lucas emerges from his prison sentence after his life of crime has finally managed to catch up with him, it is to a backdrop of war torn urbanity brought to us via the sonic courier of Public Enemy's classic "Can't Truss It" from the Apocalypse 91 album. It ties back to the cryptically elliptical words uttered by his mentor Bumpy Johnson, played by Clarence Williams III, at the beginning of the movie. "Nowadays," according to a dying Bumpy, "you can't find the heart to stick the knife into." Be that as it may, or were for the two gangsters back in the 60's, the inaccessibility of the heart of darkness that ultimately puppets Frank the next 3 hours of the story, does not deter him from venturing as close to the source as possible. After his mentor dies nearly in his arms to the tune of lamentations over the deregulation of market capitalism in the 60's and it's parallelisms manifested in the underground street markets, Frank takes it upon himself to become his own cowboy of the wild drug trade. No longer content to get his supply from the infamous trickle down French Connection system that the Italian mafia sponsored at the time, Lucas sojourns to the far east to attain his own supply. It is supposedly an evening news broadcast detailing the epidemic of drug addiction that has beset countless GI's upon return from the Vietnam war that sparked the light bulb in Frank's imagination. Where news media and the general public see social catastrophe, he looks outside of his window at his already formidable supply of customers, weighs them against his unreliable drug connection, and then stares back at the news broadcast and sees both a market and veritable resource center. Vietnam turns out to kill two birds with one stone for Frank. The rest of the film takes us through the now all too familiar story… not only of Frank Lucas himself (who since the film has become the spotlight recipient of endless media-black and mainstream), but of American Gangster fill in the blank who traverses the proverbial terrain of an underworld king. Setting up shop in a local housing development turned drug factory, paying off the dirty cops, knocking (killing) rivals off the block, dodging the murderous hands of haters and competitors, hobnobbing with the superstars at the club that your illegal tenders purchased (Joe Louis was one of many celebrity friends), all the while maintaining a relatively low profile(perhaps Frank's most unique trait) so that you may reign supreme but mostly unseen in your ghetto empire… the Frank Lucas story turns few new leaves in terms of its portrayal. We've either heard this story or seen the fictional version enough times (think: Scarface, New Jack City, King of New York, the list goes on) that the real one offers no new surprises. The kicker comes in with the Cadaver Connection.
It is via his direct to the source approach to "business" that Frank's method superseded the scope of most ambitious hustler's of his day and even those to come. In their attempts to emulate the ways of their oppressors and beat the man, as it were, few criminals of the black underworld make moves that demand and in turn grant such independence. A mere facsimile of the grand architecture of the master plan is usually sufficient. But Frank, country boy that he was (which also served as the moniker for his gang of pushers, mostly kin, that worked his locales and laundered his money) stepped outside of the parameters of the typical drug dealer or hustler. Ultimately, in venturing directly to Vietnam for his heroin, he cut out the costs of the middleman while undercutting the competition with a more potent product for cheaper: what the Harlem World of the 70's came to know as Blue Magic. In so doing, he crafted a drug dealing empire that rivaled if not beat out the Italian competition and subsequently formed one of the most highly organized crime factions of his day. The basic business principle employed here, of self sustenance by means of dependence on the two most necessary elements in successful commerce: customers (with whom you have rapport) and resources (to which you have a direct connection) is actually one that has fostered the success of every great capitalist to come thru the ranks of Millionaire status, from Ray Macdonald to Mayer Rothschild.
Everything is copasetic for the industrious Frank and his Country Boy empire aside from the usual kingpin drama. Nicky Barnes, his rival at his career's height, makes an interfering guest appearance via a surprisingly apt performance by Cuba Gooding, Jr. The Italian mafia feigns oblivion when attempts are made on Frank's life. The internal investigation boys are hot on his trail from the moment he weds his Latina queen played by Lymari Nadal. For the most part they can be assuaged by an easy pay off. Where his real trouble comes in is with Frank's nemesis, "good cop" Detective Richie Roberts played by 2-time Oscar winner Russell Crowe. While for all intents and purposes a fuck-up in real life, Richie manages to stick to the moral code when it comes to his 9 to 5. The movie introduces him as the rare New York cop of the 1960's who was actually willing to fork over a million dollars in unmarked bills of drug money into the department without skimming off the top. American Gangster is very much the entwining story of these two men, Frank and Richie, and there lives' effects on each other as the good plays against the bad and the lines of both incessantly overlap. Alas, such is the proverbial story of good versus evil, yin and yang, etc. While Denzel Washington, another Oscar winner, once again portrays a complex bad guy with a perpetual evil streak coupled with a strong sense of family, pride and nobility with great business acumen to boot, Russell adds another down and out on his luck humble hero to his repertoire.
A brief reminiscence on their hour long sparring brings to mind two rappers whose careers seem to embody the diametrically opposed dynamics at work here. On the one hand we have Ice Cube's little cousin, Del the Funky Homosapien and on the other we have a player in this very film, none other than the infamous Clifford Harris aka T.I. who plays Frank's baseball star nephew. While T.I.'s rap career has been tarried by his proud sponsorship of the drug dealing underworld that gave him his jump start and street savvy along with the "nigga's, ho's and bitches in the world" for whom he is apparently one of our street poet laureates; Del's career, much more off the radar, has been championed by the backpackers and socially conscious collegiate crowd of Hip Hop's multi-faceted listening population. It almost goes without saying that Del's subject matter is more geared towards what might be defined as the altruistic err… humanitarian, if you will, genre of hip hop. While Del's moralistic diatribes to the tune of one lyric in particular, "reduced to a vicious half beast for a crack piece-not me!" are more socially aware and serve as a cautionary appraisal of the lost and wicked ways of mankind and specifically their implications for the black community, the microcosm from whence he bails; T.I.'s message comes from a vantage point of considerably less objectivity and spews the subjective venom from the mouth of the beast that is the street-in all its corruption. His tales may be somewhat cautionary, but they do not go without an inevitable promotion of the very ills that condemn his own people. Yet at the end of the day, it's Deltron who is the real life (rumored) crack addict and T.I. the multimillionaire for merely rapping about it. Ah the contradictory morality of capitalism… gotta love it eh.
Well that in a nutshell is the paradoxical situation in which we find Frank and Detective Roberts. Further, it seems to illumine some of the most perplexing ills inherent in our capitalist system as a whole where the morally reprehensible often accrue interest on their wrongdoing while the meek of the earth barely inherit their next meal. Of course the ironies run deeper in the case of Mr. Lucas as he originated as one of the meek. In his race towards riches and "the glory" as he termed it in the Marc Jacobson interview that provided the template for this film, he gradually traded places with his oppressors and assumed their position. All this was done without a tinge of remorse or guilt but contrarily fueled by the anger and hatred that had been sewn into his malleable mind as a child. It's never more clearly delineated than in the final showdown between Frank and Richie, when Richie and his vigilante team's incessant efforts have finally brought Frank into the grasp of the law's long arm. The face off is one of the most satisfying cinema has had to offer. Pardoning us the usual gun slinging drama of Hollywood sensationalism, we are instead allowed into the interrogation room where Frank and Richie talk it out like two old friends. Richie, prying for a hint of what he deems to be necessary remorse or at least a respect for the laws that Frank has broken and disrespected, finds none. In its stead, he finds a virulent rage at the very off base assumption itself. After telling Richie about his cousin murdered as a child by the police, "Don't talk to me about no fucking police!" is the brazen retort brilliantly delivered by Denzel as he sweeps the cup of coffee into the adjacent wall. That was a sharp moment that called to mind Aaron the Moor of Shakespeare's "Titus" with his "would not that I would have avenged more!" rant along with every bad ass nigger you can think of from any given Gordon Parks, Richard Wright or Chester Himes novel. It's also the moment where you get a quick reminder of middle class (white) American oblivion. There's a certain point where the law just don't count anymore; or as the Vietnamese say, "Ban Cun Singh Dao Tac." Necessity knows no laws.
The real life Frank Lucas allegedly never hinted at remorse for his crimes until the case was actually brought to court. It was here that a mother of a victim of the Blue Magic heroine that he so proudly marketed and championed for its purity, testified of her son's great scholarly potential as a disenfranchised black youth amidst Harlem's volatile 1970's drug crazed milieu. That potential never saw fruition since the son died of an overdose. She bore witness to the bloated body, arms swollen beyond belief and littered with tracks. Alas, beneath the glitz and glam of the millionaire kingpin lifestyle, thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of dead black bodies laid. (I've often thought the same upon hearing the ejaculation of utterances in Hip Hop like, "Let's get it!" or "O what a feeling I'm feeling life!") Frank reportedly grew teary eyed at the trial upon hearing this, claiming he didn't know it "did all that." That sounds even less plausible than Phil Knights feigned ignorance towards the conditions of his Nike sweatshops that he simultaneously refused to visit nor change. Neither here nor there, Frank has served his menial time for the damages done. Much of that time was reduced due to his turning informant against the corrupt New York city police department at the time.
None of that can bring the many slain back from the dead. Nor did it, by equal measure, completely discredit the street legacy of Mr. Lucas. The debate over his credibility lingers amongst the street's most loyal devotees of yesteryear and today, due to his violation of cardinal street law (no snitching), but none of this has ameliorated his trickle down effect, and now direct connect with the values of pop culture. And while his inadvertent reinforcement of the timeless Emperor Jones motif seems to reign supreme over this generation, virtually presaging the likes of our Sean Carter's and Curtis Jackson's, I find his plausibility equally as conflicting as I do theirs. After all, his product laid claim to the nameless man in the opening scene of this review. And as the vanguard of the up and coming hip hop generation, one Lupe Fiasco, cited wisely in his American Terrorist, "how do you forgive the murderer of your father." Especially when he looks like… your own father. Well like America's love affair with evil… I'm still wrestling with that one.
And in parting…
Denzel speaks in tempered tones tinged by tendrils of the apparent well of testosterone held at conformity's bay. The measured brevity of his articulate speech gauges the progression of his thoughts with the poise of a seasoned gymnast carefully positioning his steps across the tightrope. Delineation of the parameters of the psyche are dealt with a crafty mix of fortitude and genteelness. His speech is a successful rendition of the Western masculine archetype, its very architecture mirroring all the undertones of the culture. An archaic European regality reflected in his careful delivery… brazen pragmatism… as he describes the back story of Frank Lucas and how he was drawn to the role (by no means with intentions of glorifying the man's lifestyle of course). Each gauged thought carefully administered, deft steps upon the tightrope as he approaches the ever volatile climactic point of his narration-the crux of the tale-the actual description of how the infamous Frank made it do what it do if you will. You can almost see his veil of austerity start to slip and his imagination faintly gape with boyish amusement as he clumsily allows his next thought to materialize into words. Upon describing the details of Frank's ingenious coffin cadavers smuggling scheme, our lauded patriarch of post modern Negroid morality-he slips a tad… the feet fall from the tightrope... and we witness the stringent hinges of his cool countenance give way to a subversive grin that spreads from ear to ear. Yea… he just couldn't resist it. I guess D-boys the world over aren't the only ones who get a kick out of seeing the villain win.

welcome

I know I'm way l8 to the blogosphere but I figure I'll get things started with some old po'ohms and movie reviews. Be in touch soon.