Assg 7-1

The article I decided to blog about today is the movie “American Gangster”. I watched this movie this past weekend. This movie is based off a true story and stars academy award winning actors Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe. Denzel Washington stars as Frank Lucas a 1970’s gangster who brought pure heroin to the streets of Harlem. Russell Crowe stars as Ritchie Roberts an undercover special investigator who has been tasked to bring down drug lords.
Frank Lucas got his beginning by being a driver for a gangster named Bumpy Johnson. Bumpy ends up passing away and there is no clear-cut leader in the streets of Harlem. At the time drugs were rampant in Harlem but the quality was very suspect. While watching a news piece Frank hears about Heroin in Vietnam. Frank decides to by pass all middlemen and purchase Heroin directly from the manufactures in Vietnam. What this does for Frank is enable him to give higher quality Heroin at a discount price to his customers. Frank ends up becoming a multi-millionaire with even more power then the Mafia. Ritchie gets tasked with bringing down the drug lords because he is a very honest person. So begins a cat and mouse chase between Frank and Ritchie.
This movie kind of gives an accurate description of when hard drugs such as Cocaine and Heroin began to cripple this country. Frank Lucas loved the money so much that he was willing to cripple his own by neighborhood by enabling people’s addiction to heroin. Frank Lucas is one of the reason drugs are destroying many parts of this wonderful nation.