This nominal true story has resulted in much controversy and more than one law suit. Whatever liberties have been taken with the life and criminal times of Frank Lucas the result is easily the best gangster film in years. Director Ridley Scott might lack Scorsese’s special edge but still manages to walk a successful line between the genre’s classic formula and the novelty of having a black man out godfather the mafia.

Denzel Washington is ideally cast as the arrogant, mildly psychopathic Lucas and Russell Crowe is at his least mannered best as the cop who brings him down. Crowe is too fat and long in the tooth these days to convince as a lothario but everything else rings true.

Richard Swainson