Denzel Scores Knockout with American Gangster

The gangster is an outsider. The gangster takes all that "Land of Opportunity" stuff and shoves it in his pocket.

"The gangster is the 'no' to the great American 'yes' which is stamped so big over our official culture," wrote the critic Robert Warshow. But, as we know, gangster movies never end happily. Right?

Set in the late 1960s and early '70s, Ridley Scott's star-driven "American Gangster" positions Harlem's notorious drug kingpin Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington) as an entrepreneurial self-starter in the black economy. A country boy from the South, he studies status and power at the elbow of Bumpy Johnson (Clarence Williams III), an old-school inner-city crime lord who hands out turkeys on Thanksgiving.

In the film's brisk, info-loaded first act, we see how this watchful, attentive henchman puts his learning into effect to step into his boss' shoes. When he needs to underline the new order, he does so promptly and with the minimum of fuss: He shoots his loudest rival in the head right out in the middle of the street.

Then he goes back and finishes his lunch.

Even so, it's not the ruthlessness that distinguishes Lucas from every other Scarface on the block. It's his business smarts. Boys are coming back from Vietnam high on the local smack. Frank is first to realize the business potential this untapped supply represents. By eliminating the middleman, he's able to undercut the competition by 200 percent, and with a superior product. In any other field, he'd be gracing the cover of Forbes. In the drug business, it's safer to stay under the radar.

While Frank Lucas is living the American Dream -- he marries a beauty queen and brings his momma (Ruby Dee) and his brothers over to share his suburban mansion -- Detective Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe) is studying law. His wife wants nothing more to do with him, and he's a pariah on the force after handing in a million dollars in unmarked bills. Who could trust a guy like that? Invited to set up a special drug unit with men of his own choosing, Roberts has to engage in some social anthropology of his own.

A heavyweight by design, "American Gangster" clocks in at 2 ½ hours and packs a solid wallop. Whether it can live up to sky-high expectations is another matter. Even Ridley Scott has found himself name-checking "The Godfather" and "The French Connection"; they're both pertinent comparisons up to a point, but suggestive of fireworks that don't quite ignite here.

I was reminded more of zealous New York thrillers by Sidney Lumet -- films like "Prince of the City" and "Serpico" -- not just because Richie Roberts might have been the model for those straight-arrow, squeaky-wheel cops, but because Steven Zaillian's screenplay doggedly puts the focus on process and ethics, not action and adrenaline. (Josh Brolin, as a venally corrupt NYPD detective, and Armand Assante as a mafia don could easily be Lumet characters: They're larger than life but aggressively true to it.)

To an extent, long-form TV series like "The Sopranos" and "The Wire" have raised the bar by exploring this kind of material in the depth a mere movie can only hint at, and "American Gangster" bites off more than it chews. But a movie has its own dynamic; there's something irresistible about the way Zaillian's parallel narratives gradually converge, the black-and-white mirror images of the dedicated cop and the consummate operator drawing ever nearer.

Russell Crowe brings his own considerable scowling integrity to Roberts, but in a gangster movie, it's the bad guy you come to see -- and here Denzel kills.

Whether it's fastidiously demonstrating the correct way to remove bloodstains from an alpaca rug ("Don't rub. Blot") or patiently explaining the concept of trademark infringement to a rival dealer (Cuba Gooding Jr. as flamboyant Nicky Barnes), every move he makes speaks to an essentially African-American pride and passion, the contained fury of an invisible man striving to get out from under.
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The movie may triumph on points, but Washington scores a knockout.

Thanks to Tom Charity

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American Gangster in the Crosswalk

Two great actors and a great director have teamed up for the not-so-great American Gangster, yet another look at one man’s rise to power and his struggle to maintain hold of that power as the law moves in. Aiming for the status of an epic, American Gangster has to settle for being merely passable, if not particularly excellent in any way. All of the principals involved here—Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe and director Ridley Scott—have delivered more compelling, urgent films in the past, significantly lowering the “must see” quotient for this high-powered, but sometimes plodding, drama.

Washington is Frank Lucas, a Harlem drug lord in the early 1970s who obtains heroin directly from Asia, cutting out the middle man and selling a purer form of the drug directly to customers. His entrepreneurial spirit turns him into a legend equal to any Italian mafia Don. With the help of some in the U.S. military, his product is shipped (along with dead American soldiers) back to the states.

Frank shares his wealth with his family, putting his siblings on the payroll and buying his mother (Ruby Dee) a mansion. He asserts his power by publicly killing his rivals, with no fear that he’ll be turned in by admiring neighbors.

As played by Washington, Lucas is a smooth criminal, always in command of his business but never flashy enough to attract attention from the police. His fatal mistake comes when he wears an opulent fur coat to a boxing match, where police officer Richie Roberts (Crowe) notices him among other lowlifes in the audience. Roberts—a clean cop amid the on-the-take drug enforcement officers in New York—doesn’t have many friends on the force. His marriage has failed, and his current relationships are purely sexual.

The two men are a study in contrasts. Frank attends church with his mother and says grace in the name of Jesus, but he’s a ruthless killer. Roberts’ personal life is full of failures, but his commitment to justice trumps the temptations to which so many of his fellow officers succumb.

The film cuts between the two characters until they finally meet. Their discussion, across a table from one another, is well played—one of the few memorable scenes in a film that should have had more. Surprisingly, the actor who makes the strongest impression in the film is Josh Brolin, a sleazy detective who complicates Roberts’ investigation and exemplifies the dirty-cop culture of the time.

American Gangster doesn’t add much to the long parade of gangster films already available. Centering on an African-American protagonist, the film doesn’t directly address race relations, but at its most provocative it suggests Lucas’ actions had a cost that was far less significant for the country than were those of the Vietnam War and America’s war on drugs—the backdrop against which American Gangster takes place. However, Scott and screenwriter Steven Zallian know what the audience is most interested in—sudden, shocking violence—and they feed it to the audience with just enough frequency to sate bloodthirsty viewers. Discount Poster Prices! - 30% off custom framing, 20% off everything else

Those who have tired of violent stories peppered with harsh language will find the film unsavory. Those who still crave such thrills may be satisfied by American Gangster, but even fans of the genre will have seen better entries than this. Well acted but too long, this American crime saga is simply overkill. It takes more than two-and-a-half hours of our time, and offers too little in return.

Thanks to Christian Hamaker

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Sopranos Cigars!

Taking its name from the long-running and award winning TV show, C.A.O. produces its own award winning cigar, the C.A.O. Sopranos Edition. The manufacturing facility is none other than the ultra-modern facility owned by Toraño in Danli, Honduras. With facilities such as these and a work force of highly trained torcedores, there's no better manufacturing location in all of Central America. They begin with a superior blending of Cuban-seed Honduran, Nicaraguan, and Dominican Republic long fillers.

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The Collapse of a Mob Murder Case Against a Retired FBI Agent

In a conference room on the 17th floor of the Brooklyn district attorney’s office, in the winter of 2005, a prosecutor and a detective investigator sat down with a woman they did not trust.

The woman’s name was Linda Schiro, she had been a gangster’s mistress, and she told them a story worthy of the big screen: Right at her kitchen table in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, an F.B.I. supervisor and a notorious Mafia assassin had conspired to commit four long-unsolved murders.

The case was a tempting career-maker, but one with warning signs. Ms. Schiro had already told federal investigators and others of her Mafia life, playing down the role of the F.B.I. supervisor, Roy Lindley DeVecchio.

“We knew what her problems were, and it was important for us to corroborate everything she gave us,” said Michael F. Vecchione, the prosecutor, who is chief of the district attorney’s Rackets Division and keeps an office six steps from the conference room. “And we believed we had.”

But after all the efforts to verify her story, Ms. Schiro’s own words, preserved on 10-year-old cassette recordings, came back to confirm that she could not be trusted.

As the sensational quadruple-murder case based on her testimony was formally dismissed yesterday, the judge denounced the tactics used by the F.B.I. to fight organized crime, Mr. DeVecchio said he would never forgive the Brooklyn prosecutors, and Mr. Vecchione defended his case.

The woman at the center of it all, Ms. Schiro, prepared for possible perjury charges, hiding from the press behind closed doors. “She’s standing by what she said in court 100 percent,” said her appointed lawyer, Gary Farrell. “I understand the inconsistencies, they’re there, and she’s got a plausible explanation.”

Ms. Schiro’s explanation may emerge if prosecutors carry out their pledge to request a special prosecutor for a perjury inquiry. But as the murder case against Mr. DeVecchio dissolved yesterday, the decision to use her testimony came under intense scrutiny.

“The D.A. here did not take the simplest steps to verify what this mercenary and absolutely amoral human being was telling them,” said Douglas E. Grover, a lawyer for Mr. DeVecchio. He called the case “a model of what a responsible prosecutor should not do.”

The charges against Mr. DeVecchio dated to the 1980s and early 1990s, when he oversaw an F.B.I. unit assigned to the Colombo crime family. His primary informer was Gregory Scarpa, a capo. During a war for control of the family, agents working for Mr. DeVecchio voiced suspicions of his relationship with Mr. Scarpa. In trials that followed, prosecutors acknowledged that Mr. DeVecchio had disclosed confidential information to Mr. Scarpa.

In 1994, federal investigators pursuing an internal investigation interviewed Ms. Schiro, who had lived for years with Mr. Scarpa, who died in prison in 1994. Mr. DeVecchio was cleared of wrongdoing and allowed to retire.

Later, Ms. Schiro spoke to authors ranging from a hard-boiled crime writer to a purveyor of romantic advice, generally characterizing Mr. DeVecchio as a friendly, tangential figure in her Mafia tableau.

Dormant for years, the case was passed on to the Brooklyn district attorney’s office by Representative William Delahunt, Democrat of Massachusetts, after a Congressional investigation stalled.

Investigators first focused on the killing of Nicholas Grancio, a capo in the Colombo family. “We were able to dispel the notion that DeVecchio played a role in that homicide,” said Mr. Vecchione, who oversaw the investigation and tried the case. “There were other nuggets out there that needed pursuing.”

Prosecutors visited Ms. Schiro at her home in Staten Island. “The moment that the case first broke open was when Linda gave us these four homicides in toto,” Mr. Vecchione said.

Seeking confirmation, investigators spoke to imprisoned members of the crime family. One, Carmine Sessa, a onetime consigliere, told them Mr. Scarpa had spoken freely about his crimes in front of his mistress.

The prosecutors also spoke to the agents who had raised suspicions about their boss. Special Agent Chris Favo confirmed details of surveillance conducted on one of the slain men, information the prosecutors would accuse Mr. DeVecchio of giving Mr. Scarpa.

When they brought Ms. Schiro to that conference room in the winter of 2005, prosecutors began preparing her for a grand jury, Mr. Vecchione said. They moved her family for protection and began paying her $2,200 a month for living expenses. But in relying on their corroborating witnesses, the prosecutors did little to scrutinize Ms. Schiro’s prior statements.

“The fact is they never told the grand jury that Linda Schiro had made numerous statements for years inconsistent with her recent claims about Mr. DeVecchio’s guilt,” said Mr. Grover, the defense lawyer.

As opening statements were delivered on Oct. 15, the gears that would doom the case locked into place. Because Mr. DeVecchio had waived his right to a jury trial, the legal concept of jeopardy attached, meaning he could not be retried for the four killings in which he was indicted, a court official said. And in the gallery that day sat Tom Robbins, a reporter who would return to court with tape-recorded interviews of Ms. Schiro.

The prosecutor’s emphasis on Ms. Schiro’s testimony, Mr. Robbins has said, led him to revisit the tapes, confirming that she had denied any involvement by Mr. DeVecchio in the killings.

In State Supreme Court yesterday, Justice Gustin L. Reichbach dismissed the charges and ordered the return of Mr. DeVecchio’s $1 million bail, which had been raised in part by his former colleagues in the F.B.I.

A round of applause rose from the gallery. Outside the courtroom, Mr. DeVecchio’s supporters criticized the prosecution. “These people are incompetent,” said Jim Kossler, a retired F.B.I. agent.

Recounting the bureau’s accomplishments against organized crime and the quandaries of handling informants, he added, “They could have indicted me just as easily.”

Mr. DeVecchio, 67, spoke of returning home to Florida to ride his Harley and enjoy retirement. “I will never forgive the Brooklyn D.A. for irresponsibly pursuing this case after being warned by others that this one witness was untrustworthy,” he said.

In his written final word on the case, Justice Reichbach criticized the tactics of the F.B.I. Quoting from Nietzsche, he reminded those involved in the case that “he who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster.”

Thanks to Michael Brick

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Alleged Genovese Mafia Boss & Lieutenant Plead Guilty To Extortion

MICHAEL J. GARCIA, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that Acting Boss of the Genovese Organized Crime Family, DANNY LEO, a/k/a “The Lion,” 66, and his primary lieutenant and nephew, JOSEPH LEO, 45, pleaded guilty today to charges of extortion. DANNY and JOSEPH LEO pleaded guilty in Manhattan federal court before United States Magistrate Judge ANDREW J. PECK.

According to the Indictment and statements made during bail hearings and the guilty pleas:

From 2002 to November 30, 2006, DANNY LEO and JOSEPH LEO agreed to extort a business owner ("Victim-1") by threatening Victim-1 with physical violence and other harm if he did not make prompt repayment of various loans and debts. Also, from about January 2003 to January 2006, DANNY LEO agreed to extort the owners and operators of an illegal gambling business involved in interstate commerce ("Victim-2" and "Victim-3"). DANNY LEO and other members and associates of the Genovese Organized Crime Family, agreed to use threats of economic harm and violence to force Victim-2 and Victim-3 to make payments to a member of the Genovese Organized Crime Family.

DANNY LEO pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiring to commit extortion. Magistrate Judge PECK ordered both defendants to continue to be detained. JOSEPH LEO pleaded guilty to one count of extortion. DANNY LEO faces a maximum sentence of 40 years’ imprisonment and a maximum fine of $250,000. JOSEPH LEO faces a maximum sentence of 20 years’ imprisonment and a maximum fine of $250,000.

Mr. GARCIA praised the work of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the New York City Police Department, and the New York State Police in this investigation. Assistant United States Attorneys ERIC SNYDER and BENJAMIN GRUENSTEIN are in charge of the prosecution.

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