American Gangsters moved faster than a speeding bullet and was more powerful than a “loco” motive. It heaped scores of bodies everywhere – with only a single shot. Look up at the screen; it’s a movie…that capitalizes….on everything.

At least that’s what I thought. But what do I know? It took a lot of effort on my part just to try and follow the story. But here goes….

Set in Harlem during The Vietnam War, the movie follows the true-life story of Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington) and his desire to become a successful – and respected – entrepreneur in the land of the free. In order to achieve his vision, Frank devises a way to establish market share for his product by buying directly from the source, thus cutting out the middle man. Nothing new here; every savvy businessman knows the lower the overhead, the higher the profits.

I forgot to mention that his product happens to be heroin.

Frank becomes a master in business administration. After observing soldiers returning home from their (only one) tour of duty as drug addicts, he recognizes the (dollar) value of this untapped market and that, his dreams, too, can come true.

So he travels to Bangkok where he meets several other like-minded entrepreneurs – and in between strippers, hookers, and alcoholic hazes – they discuss business strategies such as supply and demand, availability, traffic, trademark infringement, transportation, and of course, bookkeeping.

The film implies that war presents ample opportunity for a select few to profit.

Anyway, everyone knows that the United States federal protective agencies are not going to allow anything (especially from Asia) into our nation that is harmful to our citizens (dubbed ‘protecting the children’), so Frank has to figure out how to import his “idea” without “incident”. This proves not to be a problem because Frank takes a page from the lobbyist manual (pre-K Street) by handing over large sums of cash to government employees – who fly the stuff in on military jets to a base just outside Washington, DC. Brilliant!

Once the product arrives, Frank’s business plan takes over. He maximizes his Marketing 101 education by remembering the three criteria for sales – location, location, location – and employs a resident sales staff to “advocate” his product right there on the neighborhood street corner! How ingenious is that? I mean, there’s no waste – i.e. billions of dollars allocated to print or television advertising like some other drug conglomerates that show colorful water balloons happily holding hands and skipping down the street because they’re able to hold their urine (even though the side effects mirror that of the ones they “push” – headache, vomiting, chronic fatigue, muscle pain, difficulty breathing, addiction, and of course, death).

And there’s more. Here’s the most important part: Frank sells his product at twice the quality (strength) for half the price! A mere $10 will get you feeling better in no time.

American consumers eat it up. I think because there’s no paperwork to complete, no co-pays, no deductibles to meet, no insurance company denials – and it’s a weight loss product to boot. Picture it: Informed citizens finally being able to fit into a size two!

Frank is so successful that he becomes a multi-millionaire virtually overnight – in 1969 dollars, that is – which, as we know, would be worth several billion dollars today with the rich tax cuts over the last eight years.

Of course, not everyone is happy about Frank’s newfound success. The Italian families used to “own” this market, and now they are being undersold. By 1971 their profits have been so compromised that they could only afford seats in the third row for the Fight of the Century at Madison Square Garden. They used to get ringside seats, damn it. So they invite Frank to their countryside residence where they skeet shoot. Apparently this is a sporting activity used only by the most crucially powerful men to negotiate and “divvy up” the pie. (I should point out that no one got shot in the face.)

Oh of course there is also that special police task force which has been set up to investigate this “drug problem” (nowadays a contradiction of terms) which is headed by do-gooder Russell Crowe, the only honest cop around for miles and miles and miles and miles and miles.

This film capitalizes on everything, including how to flatten the competition. But also throughout the movie, it begs such questions as: Who will win? Who will take down Frank? Will Frank marry the beauty-queen with no moral values? Why were television news shows allowed to broadcast images of the war every single day? Why did America tolerate protests against everything back then? And why were these constitutionally-protected rites of civil disobedience endured, thus empowering citizens?

And most importantly: How did an unpopular war fought thousands of miles away in a land where we didn’t speak the language or understand the culture actually end?

As you can see, I understood most of the film except…why it was called American Gangsters. Wait a minute, were they trying to say that capitalism is like organized crime?