Spoiler Points for American Gangster (2007)

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Spoiler Points for American Gangster (2007) [R] 157 minutes
WIP™ Scale: $13.50
Film's Official Website • Film's Trailer

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Click to read the non-spoiler review

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Spoilers for films based on true stories seem nearly irrelevant, yet so many people search for them, it's important that supply meet the demand. Perhaps it's all history buffs searching to see if the movie matches their recollection of the true events. In any case, here's a brief synopsis and spoiler for the ending of American Gangsters.

Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington) using a mix of his street smarts and street education, realizes the key to building a successful empire is to convince his cousin stationed in Thailand to help him illegally import pure heroine from the source. Then, he can sell it for half the cost and twice the potency as his competition. From this, "Blue Magic" is born. Quickly, he overtakes nearly the entire market for illegal narcotics in the New York City metropolitan area amassing a huge fortune, a huge number of drug lord and crime lord enemies, and the need for people he can trust to run his business fronts. Enter his entire North Carolinian family. He buys an enormous estate and moves everyone in. The scenes look like something straight out of "The Beverly Hillbillies" as these solemn, peaceful, and previously legitimately hard working people enter his new world of fantastic wealth and illegal and immoral business dealings. Ah, but he still takes his mama (Ruby Dee) to church every Sunday. Working to stop him, most of the time without knowing he was the man in charge, is Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe). A cop ostracized from his squad mates because he turned over nearly a million dollars in untraceable loot recovered from a suspect mob boss' car, yeah, that's right he was ostracized because he was too honest, Richie gets asked to head up the Essex County anti-narcotics division. The job consumes him to the extent of losing his wife and son. All the while, though, he works tirelessly to bring down the really big players in the narcotic import and distribution business. After many, many, many, many, many rearrangements of the photos of the people they believe are in charge on wall-sized bulletin boards, Richie suddenly realizes that Frank Lucas is the king pin. And, now, he has to bring Lucas down. Which he eventually does because, as the Vietnam War comes to a close, Frank Lucas arranges one final shipment of heroine from his supplier. It is transported back into the United States in secret compartments built into the temporary metal coffins of those brave men lost in battle. Following the chain of the drugs back to the processing center, Richie brings down the entire organization and then even prosecutes Frank Lucas himself. Frank gets a reduced sentence of only 70 years for his cooperation in helping to indict over half of the police in the New York City anti-narcotics division on charges of accepting bribes and other related crimes. In the end, most of Frank Lucas's family end up serving prison time as well. The man, the myth, the legend ended up having nearly his entire $250,000,000 fortune seized by the government. The film never reveals whether Frank Lucas ever showed a moment of regret or remorse for the 1000s of people who became heroine addicts from his product and the countless lives he ruined in the process of making his own 'success' story.

The final scenes of the film are shown with sub-text showing what happened in real life to the major players. Frank Lucas was released after 15 years for good behavior and cooperation with authorities. The sub-text also purported that Richie Roberts went on to become a defense attorney and that Frank Lucas was eventually his client.