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Most movies that claim to be based on a true story fudge at least a
little. There is an understandable need to compress events, or create
composite characters to represent numerous real life individuals. They
need to placate the egos of surviving family members and estate owners by
offering a more flattering picture than, perhaps, is justified. "I
Walk the Line" and "Ray", for example.
Some fudge a lot. They add events or details that don't correspond
to any real events or details. They leave out rather significant
events in order to give a far more flattering portrait than is deserved:
"Marie Antoinette" and "Evita" for example.
And then there are movies like "American Gangster" that exist in a
fantasyland of Hollywood "true story", in which gangsters look like
supermodels, and one heroic cop is so honest he wouldn't take a light from
stranger, and gee, gosh, you're so glad that Denzel Washington-- I mean
Frank Lucas-- got out of prison after only five years even though the movie
shows him committing several cold-blooded murders, because he was just such
a darn gosh nice guy and, after all, he ended up helping the government by
turning in corrupt police officers. Didn't he?
I've had people look at me and say, do you think Hollywood could get away
with lies that big? Are you crazy?
Perhaps the worst offense of this film is the selection of Denzel
Washington to play Lucas. There isn't an ounce of evil in this
portrait, even when he shoots people. It's not impossible to play a
drug lord or mafia kingpin as a three-dimensional character who might even
be admirable in some ways-- see "Goodfellas" or "The Godfather" to see how
it's done. But I doubt I've ever seen a worse performance in such a
role ever. Washington doesn't even come off as hard or mean enough to
manage a car wash, let alone a network of drug dealers, corrupt cops, and
junkies.
By the way, in real life, when his house in New Jersey was searched,
among other things (including $500,000 in cash) that were found were about
200 pairs of ugly, ostentatious shoes belonging to... Frank Lucas.
Even worse, the movie suggests-- well, actually, it slathers it across
the screen-- that there was something heroic in the deals Lucas cut in order
to reduce his sentence in which he helped turn in his competition,
and the corrupt cops that were taking money out of his profits.
Allegedly.
The film wants it both ways. It wants you to believe that he was really,
really bad, and actually murdered people. And then it wants you to
admire Lucas so that you cheer for the reductions in his sentence so that he
is released after serving five years! The movie pays lip service to
the fact that the product that made Lucas rich, heroin, destroyed hundreds
if not thousands of lives but it does it in such a way that those events
remain, in the viewers mind, disconnected from the hero, Denzel Washington,
who spends a good part of the film watching over events reasonably, calmly,
why, even humbly.
I wonder if there is a film to be made in the life story of a petty drug
dealer who, at the behest of his charming and fabulously wealthy domo,
killed someone, got caught, convicted, sentenced to life in prison, only to
see the guy who hired him get out after five years. Only to see the
guy that hired him fink on his fellow dealers. Only to the see the guy
that hired him meet the mayor, write a book, and attend a Hollywood
premiere.
I'm not saying there is anything wrong with the finking. In fact,
maybe a rational, sensible person would conclude that finking, on drug
dealers, was the right thing to do, even if you were the king of the drug
dealers. But the film doesn't show Lucas doing it when there is
abundant documentary evidence that he did, and Lucas, in interviews, claims
he never finked on his own dealers-- only on corrupt cops.
That is a relief. For a minute, I thought he was a crook.
Then we have Lucas' rival and competitor, Nicky Barnes.
...
It would never do for a prosecutor to announce that he was recommending
leniency for a drug dealer because, well, he's just such a swell guy, and
he's good friends with Joe Louis and Frank Sinatra and throws fabulous
parties (to which I have been invited, and at which I get to meet
celebrities, and high-ranking cops, and other government officials), and
when we talk about getting tough on crime, hell, we meant the dirty crime on
the streets, the kind that gets its hair mussed, not this classy, refined,
tasteful crime....
No, no. So instead you say, he cooperated. He helped the
police. He gave them good information on other criminals. He
became indispensable to our efforts to battle organized crime. I can't
show you an exact case in which he actually provided useful testimony in
court, but I can assure you, blah, blah, blah....
I had to read this twice to believe it. It's from Wikipedia:
Due to the efforts of
Rudolph W. Giuliani and others he was released from prison in
August,
1998 as a
reward for his cooperation.
Then I realized-- wait, wait-- this is after all the real Rudy Giuliani,
not the mythical Giuliani of his own imagination. In real life,
Republican Giuliani is just helping out another corporate profiteer, a man
much like himself, who benefits through the sufferings of others, the others
who actually fight in Viet Nam, or work in a factory, or face criminals on
the streets!
If you asked Nicky Barnes or Frank Lucas about Giuliani, they would tell
you that he was a great guy, a straight talker, and an honest cop.
Okay-- you have two very, very serious criminals tell you that Giuliani is a
great cop to them. Okay. Don't raise any suspicions? But
then you have Giuliani telling us that Barnes and Lucas are good guys now.
Everything's okay.
Copyright © 2008 Bill Van Dyk All rights
reserved. |
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