Beyond Superfly

Owen Gleiberman's review puts forth the "uneasy role model" critique. Keeping with the critical consensus, Gleiberman praises Ridley Scott's craftsmanship, specifically the "grit and clutter" of the set design and the "pointillistic" and "coruscating" scene structure. Gleiberman's problem is with the composition of Frank Lucas: Denzel doesn't "transform;" he's all "dour nobility" and "might be playing a senator, or Malcolm X, all over again." Gleiberman diagnoses the ending as "weirdly upbeat," noting that movie gangsters have indeed become "role models." Gleiberman's problem with Scott's "role model" gangster is that he "set out to create one." In other words, Gleiberman seems to think that the filmmakers want their Frank Lucas to be seen as a hero.

This is a drastic misread of the film wrapped around a simplistic misread of the mafioso rap genre. Gleiberman seems to argue that the movie gangsters popularized by rap are "role models" that the artist means for his audience to emulate. This, presumably, is what makes Gleiberman "uneasy" about the film: He doesn't want to congratulate a film that encourages urban youth and suburban whiggers to put a American Gangster poster next to that of Scarface and daydream about cigars, fedoras and bling. In short, Owen Gleiberman doesn't want America's youth looking up to Tony Montana and Frank Lucas. But that's not what's happening here. The best mafioso rappers, such as Jay-Z, use movie gangsters as the central metaphors for the fantasies and aspirations of real-life street hustlers. In this circumstnace, gangsters are "role models" in the sense that they're a "metaphor for the character in my stories," not "someone who ought to be emulated." Critics who perceive this difference have leaped to the defense of such top-shelf rap, arguing that while part of the audience may be taking the metaphor as an endorsement of, rather than a complex artistic trope for, the characters, the work itself is meritorious. This brings us back to Gleiberman's simplistic criticism. Unless he believes Frank Lucas to be taken as a hero, why else would he be "uneasy" with the film?

Jay-Z himself instantly understood the complex nature of the movie version of Frank Lucas. Soon after the release of American Gangster, Jay-Z released a concept album based on the film, correlating his life to the character played by Denzel Washington played. Jay-Z calls the album his "indie-film version" of American Gangster, and it debuted at no. 1 on the Billboard top 200. He even pulled the album from iTunes because he felt it should be "digested as a whole, not in single tracks" — just like a movie. On the American Gangster album, as in his early work, Jay-Z relies on his memories of the Marcy Projects to tell the story of the rise and fall of an urban youth trying to make money any way he can. Reportedly, Jay-Z kept the movie on in the monitors of his studio as "inspiration," instantly recognizing scenes from his old neighborhood.

The album isn't straight narrative, however; sometimes Sean Corey Carter leaves his Jay-Z character, breaking into a third person omniscient narrator that sounds like a critic, to remind us that rappers are indeed actors — "DeNiros in practice, so don't believe everything you hear" — before unleashing a torrent of "gangsta rap stereotypes filled with swearing and violence" as if to remind the audience of the complexity of the fantasy world they're tuned into.

As Jay-Z says himself, this complexity comes directly from the film. On The Charlie Rose Show (where he is introduced as "rapper and entrepreneur"), Jay-Z observes about the film's Frank Lucas, "It's one of those movies where you champion the good guy, because … he don't seem like a bad guy, and the bad guy … I mean the good guys are bad. You know, the complexity of human beings in this thing was amazing to me." In other words, Frank Lucas isn't a heroic role model; he's cloaked himself in the dressing of a role model to do terrible things to make money and get away with it. His dual personality stands in contrast to the parallel story of Detective Richie Roberts, who is an adultering louse in his personal life but the only man in New York City still abiding by the rule of law in the prosecution of the drug war. What should make the audience "uneasy" is not that Frank Lucas is some sort of heroic role model — but the human tragedy of his dual personalities. If American Gangster's Frank Lucas is a role model for anybody, it's not African-Americans yearning to escape the ghetto. Scott brings home this point during an exchange between Lucas, his brother and his nephew in the backyard of Lucas' mansion:

Nephew: I don't wanna play baseball no more.
Huey Lucas: Frank, we got a problem.
Frank Lucas: (looking at the nephew) Well, what do you want?
Nephew: I want what you got, Uncle Frank. I wanna be you.

Denzel looks down ever so slightly, just for a brief moment, giving an uneasy grin that quickly opens into a full-blown smile. Frank Lucas must keep up appearances, even with family. Chiwetel Ejiofor, as Huey, opens his eyes wide and turns his head away, clearly frightened by what he's heard: This is not the life he wants for his son. Denzel gives us a glimpse of the internal life of Lucas: He also understands that, but he's too deep into his businessman's persona to compromise his operation by showing anyone weakness or doubt. Not even his family — especially not his family, because he needs trustworthy lieutenants to run his operation, and here's his next officer. The scene inverts American clichés: No, we don't want to see youth carry on the family business, and no, we don't want to see the next generation become successful if it has to happen this way. Ejiofor's expression douses any sense of Frank Lucas as a hero or a role model.