A few weeks ago, we reported here on the ongoing rivalry between Nicky Barnes and Frank Lucas, who were both drug dealers in the New York of the 1970s. Both men were eventually arrested and imprisoned, after which both turned snitch, ratted out their former associates, and are both now "retired" and back out in the world. This is of interest to us mainly because both men are also the subjects of movies — the high-profile Ridley Scott epic
American Gangster and the documentary
Mr. Untouchable — that opened within a week of each other. As part of the publicity for each movie, both men have been granting interviews in which they've talked about the bad old days and also jockeyed for position as the
real ultimate big-city badass of their era. But of course, given the Screen Grab's recognized and unquestioned authority on movies and everything else fly, they have both secretly been sitting on the edge of their seats, nervously waiting to hear what
we think. First, just to state the obvious and get it out of the way: both men are sociopathic predators and dishonored tattletales, who should in no way be mistaken for glamorous figures or role models. But a job's a job. There can be only one.
THE MOVIE: American Gangster, directed by Ridley Scott; written by Steve Zaillian
OUR HERO: Frank Lucas, as played by Denzel Washington, is a smooth, well-dressed powder keg of an urban entrepreneur, more Fortune 500 than Detroit 9000. The only time he casts off his smart suits is to attend the Ali-Frazier fight in a white Super Fly ensemble that sits on him about as comfortably as tight jeans and a wifebeater might have on Cary Grant. (The movie stresses that this was his
wife's idea; after the clown clothes earn Frank some unwanted attention, he goes right home and literally throws them in the fireplace.) Though Washington gets to have a few violent tantrums — and, in a moment of purely calculated coldness, lays claim to supremacy on his turf by casually shooting a rival in the head in front of about a hundred witnesses — the performance has none of the scary volatility of his bad cop in
Training Day. The movie seems to want you to like him, and to make sure the mainstream audience likes him, it defines his ambitions in terms of upper-middle class acquisition: a beautiful wife and home, a nice place for his momma (Ruby Dee), a low profile.
HIS BETE NOIRE: Nicky Barnes is played here by Cuba Gooding, Jr., which is kind of a slap in the face right there. Actually, as is often the case, Gooding's acting is much better than his track record at selecting his roles. He's brooding and charismatic, albeit in a ridiculous, coked-up way. He goes in for the Super Fly flashiness that Frank rejects. At one point, he's seen at a party proudly handing out copies of
The New York Times Magazine with his picture on the cover — a nod to an actual incident that insiders will recognize as having marked the beginning of the end for Barnes. It was after seeing Barnes's posed picture on the cover, alongside the legend "Mr. Untouchable", that President Carter got on the phone to the Justice Department and ordered them to make Barnes priority number one.
THE MILIEU: Production-designed to death but with little sense of breathable air,
American Gangster recalls the Elvis Mitchell line about applying grit with an aerosol can. The most disappointing thing about it is that the fine supporting cast is largely wasted; there's really nobody in the movie but Washington as Lucas and Russell Crowe as Richie Roberts, the New Jersey police detective on his trail. Scott inflates their starry icons until they blot out the sun, as well as the supporting actors.
THE END: No spoiler warning here; the fact that Lucas (like Barnes) was busted and turned state's witness has been widely reported in the publicity surrounding the movie. What counts is how the moviemakers treat this less-than-heroic aspect of their story. It must be said that they wimp out. In real life, not only did Lucas sing for a reduced sentence, but the actual Richie Roberts retired from the force to become a defense attorney and accepted a fat fee from Lucas to represent him at trial. The way the movie presents it, the drug dealer and the good cop join forces because they recognize a common enemy: the bad cops who have been making Roberts's life miserable while shaking down Lucas. The movie comes dangerously close to presenting Lucas as just a successful businessman who made himself rich the only way white society would allow him to do it, and whose testimony against others wipes the slate clean.
THE MOVIE: Mr. Untouchable, directed by Marc Levin
OUR HERO: Nicky Barnes, who details his life while protectively photographed in shadows. Much of the time, we only see his bony, expressive hands working as he tells his tale and offers his justifications for what he's done. He lived big, and now it's over, but no matter what he says, he leaves you with the feeling that he thinks it was worth it. He offers a compelling picture of a megalomaniacal sociopath who's outlived the good times.
HIS BETE NOIRE: Whereas
American Gangster treats Nicky Barnes as a fact of life in Frank Lucas's world, someone who may be treated dismissively but cannot be ignored, Lucas is only mentioned glancingly in
Mr. Untouchable, Barnes speaks of him with the contempt one usually reserves for something unpleasant that's gotten stuck to one's shoe, and mocks the idea that Frank would ever have done anything so disrespectful as to have put out a contract on him, as Lucas has claimed. Also, a single photograph of Lucas is briefly shown. He's wearing the same stupid-looking coat and hat that Denzel wears on fight night, and to say that he at least looks at home in that getup is to acknowledge that he doesn't look very Denzelesque.
THE MILIEU: Since
Mr. Untouchable is a documentary about people who weren't often recording their illegal activities with camcorders, much of the period atmosphere must be laid in with old news footage and photos and such, but it does have what
American Gangster sorely needs, and what every good crime picture thrives on: a teeming and colorful supporting cast. That includes not just Barnes's former colleagues (one of whom is named Frank James) and his ex-wife, Thelma Grant, whose picture ought to be in the dictionary next to the entry on "gangsta love", but such characters as Bob Geronimo, who walked into the offices of the DEA to volunteer his services as an undercover informant and bring Barnes's and his whole organization down after one of Barnes's lieutenants, seriously underestimating the man's ability to hold a grudge, stole his car. (Geronimo's code name on the operation was "Barbarino", as in John Travolta's character on
Welcome Back, Kotter. This information is supplied by a fed who adds that he was never clear on why somebody whose real name was "Geronimo" needed a code name.) Incidentally, Geronimo and others who worked to bring Barnes down agreed to be filmed in full light, which makes or a sly, unspoken comment on Barnes's preferring to linger in shadows. The filmmakers also interviewed Barnes' lawyer, David Breitbart, who supplies his version of the
New York Times Magazine cover picture story: he had advised Barnes not to co-operate with the paper and told the photographers to stay the hell away from his client until A. M. Rosenthal himself called up and informed him that unless Barnes agreed to come in to pose, they'd use the mug shot he had taken after he was arrested for murder, a photo that was taken after he was roused from bed in the middle of the night "and it looks like he ate the victim's eyeballs."
THE END: The movie doesn't try to sell Barnes's decision to testify against others as a heroic crime-busting operation, but it makes it seem something other than cowardly by stressing that it was, in fact, an act of revenge: rightly or wrongly, Barnes felt that those still on the outside (including his wife) were screwing him over and wanted payback. He broke his whole operation himself just to show how bad he was. The movie also differs from
American Gangster by balancing his say with the testimony of those he turned on.
THE VERDICT: It seems clear that of the two gentlemen in question, Nicky Barnes is the more deserving of the title Mr. Ultimate Seventies Badass Heroin Dealer Turned Squealer. His mother must be so proud.
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Phil Nugent