Until the final confrontation of Frank and Richie, the scenes are brief and emblematic, though the director, Ridley Scott, filming in the street or at clubs and parties, packs as much as he can into the corners and backgrounds of shots and decisively shapes even the most casual moments.
Set in the late 1960s and early '70s, Ridley Scott's star-driven "American Gangster" positions Harlem's notorious drug kingpin Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington) as an entrepreneurial self-starter in the black economy.