Wiggly Socks Movie Reviews

By Linda Winsh-Bolard


In New York of 1969 Frank Lucas drives his gangster boss until the minute he dies learning the business With he is dead, Lucas learns fast that the key to success is ownership rather than working for somebody.

Across the river Ritchie is a cop in New Jersey, not top of the world but plenty of crime to deal with, and Ritchie is a painfully honest cop who gets recruited to the special anti-drug force after Nixon declares war on narcotics.

Lucas starts an independent business smuggling pure heroin from Asia via Vietnam using the caskets of the fallen soldiers. He guarantees the purity of his product “Blue Magic” while he sells it for half price having cut out the middlemen.

Across the river Ritchie returns million dollars from sized car and in the first $20,000 sting catches couple of the New York’s finest with hands in the till. There is nothing he can do, nor is there anything he can do about his junkie partner.

Lucas brings in his entire family from North Carolina and involves them in “business”. He meets the right, beautiful girl and marries her.

Ritchie is fighting his wife for custody of his son, she is leaving him and moving to the safer, more child friendly Vegas- the irony is intentional.

Lucas is brutal killer, cold, dangerous, indifferent to the havoc his product wreaks, regarding corruption, moral and physical, as mere part of every day’s business, but in his private life, he is a devoted son, husband, church goer who gives to charity and humbles himself.

Ritchie is a devoted, first class, poor policeman who lies to his wife and son and cheats on her again and again. Even faced with the death of his junkie partner, he would never compromise his working ethics; he feels no such obligations to his family.

Pity we did not see more of this explored in an action between those two men.

We did see a lot of procedures, be it in building of the drug empire with all the sleaziness brutality and death it brings to all involved, or police procedures and corruption. We saw some personal bravery. As far as interaction goes, there was more between Lucas and the New York corrupt detective Truppo than between Lucas and Ritchie, save the very end which gave both Denzel and Crowe the chance to shine and they both did.

The film is appropriately street gritty, drug glittery, classical gangster flick. It gains on most of other such movies by never letting us forget how is the glitter paid for; the imagoes of injections and mangled bodies of drug users are ever present, it also provides a bit of singular human personality for the main opponents.

Denzel and Crowe are good, versatile, experienced actors who managed to convey unwritten depths to their characters. Denzel can go from casual killing to being slapped by his Mother for not listening to her, and still be Lucas, the heroin boss. Crowe can pursue drug bosses and sleep with his own attorney , only to admit to his wife that she is right and should take their child away.

The film atmosphere is detailed and perfectly accurate for its time, even if it includes plenty of naked females and kinky hairdos and outfits.

It suffers, like most of Scott’s films, from length, needless wandering and prolonged chases, lack of tension and lack of developmental depth. It’s a guy movie, made by a guy for guys, and remains two dimensionally shallow.

It also suffers from dangerous projection that somehow black gangsters, who were celebrated as heroes long before rap came along, are actually glamorous and perhaps even good for their neighborhood. They are not. Nor were they ever. Had the women in this film had any part in the story other than being pretty, it might have come through how much suffering gangsters, drugs and killings cause to all involved and many innocent. At the end the film lacks human perception of evil in suits.

Directed by Ridley Scott. Screenplay, Steven Zaillian, based on the article "The Return of Superfly" by Mark Jacobson.

Frank Lucas - Denzel Washington
Richie Roberts - Russell Crowe
Huey Lucas - Chiwetel Ejiofor
Nicky Barnes - Cuba Gooding Jr.
Det. Trupo - Josh Brolin
Lou Toback - Ted Levine
Dominic Cattano - Armand Assante
Ellsworth "Bumpy"
Johnson - Clarence Williams III
Javier J. Rivera - John Ortiz
Freddie Spearman - John Hawkes
Moses Jones - RZA
Eva - Lymari Nadal
Alfonse Abruzzo - Yul Vazquez
Mama Lucas - Ruby Dee
Tango - Idris Elba
Laurie Roberts - Carla Gugino
Charlie Williams - Joe Morton
Turner Lucas - Common
Rossi - Jon Polito
Campizi - Kevin Corrigan
Nate - Rodger Guenveur Smith
Jimmy Zee - Malcolm Goodwin
Chinese General - Ric Young
U.S. Attorney - Roger Bart
Stevie Lucas - Tip Harris
Richie's Attorney - Kadee Strickland
Doc - Ruben Santiago-Hudson
Detective in Morgue - Norman Reedus

A Universal release.