Criminal Profiling Topic of the Day: American Gangsters: Frank Lucas and Denzel Washington

I just finished seeing "American Gangster" and I want to be the first to say, Denzel Washington owes America an apology. While I have respected some of Denzel's work in the past, I have come to the conclusion he is seriously lacking in the morals department. He played the part of Rubin Carter, the boxer turned murderer in “The Hurricane” and now he brings the character of Frank Lucas, drug kingpin and murderer, to the screen in “American Gangster.” I wouldn’t think negatively of Washington if he portrayed these men truthfully, but he seems perfectly willing to ignore history and veracity along with equally unethical Hollywood producers and writers. He even has the incredible lameness to claim he shouldn’t judge these men. Of Lucas, he says, “Basically, Frank’s a human being who’s done some awful things and paid the price for it.” As to Carter, Denzel introduced him as “a man of love” at the Golden Globe Awards.

WTF? Let’s take a quick look at these two men Denzel seems to think are nice enough guys. Rubin Carter is a nasty brutal psychopath who made a career out of robbing, assaulting, and murdering people. Just because he did a little boxing along with his many crimes means jackshit. He finally got out of prison on a technicality and Hollywood saw big money by making him a hero who was wrongly convicted. Carter also made a good sum of money of off of the lies he and the movie makers perpetuated and then he went of the speakers’ circuit, visiting colleges and getting honored for his “suffering due to injustice.” Frank Lucas, a psychopath of the nth degree, was a career criminal as a juvenile, destroyed countless lives and the fabric of the community in Harlem as a drug kingpin, and also murdered people (he admitted to one murder, put a hit out on his own brother, and as with all criminals and icebergs, what we see is only a tenth of what is really hidden from us). Now, Lucas is making millions off of his crimes again.

No, Denzel, neither man has just “done some awful things and paid the price for them.” Both men should have been executed or spent a lifetime in a hellhole. Instead, they got off lightly and are living the good life. Not only that, they are being lauded and treated as celebrities. Crime really does pay in this country because people like Denzel Washington, producer Ridley Scott and other producers, directors, and actors, don’t care about the truth as long as they make money. They abet these cold-blooded pieces of garbage in duping the American public about the damage they have caused to the health and welfare of the African-American community and to the lives of untold numbers of children and adults.

Furthermore, Denzel, neither of these men was a “good family men” as portrayed in these movies. They cared little about their children as no loving father puts his sons and daughters in danger, raises them in a criminal atmosphere, teaches them to thumb their noses at moral and ethical living, and leaves them stranded when they go to jail. The families of these “good family men” were pieces of crap as well. The wife of Frank Lucas was portrayed in the movie as an innocent, sweet girl, but in real life she was a self-serving criminal, spending quite a few years in jail for the crimes she committed. The mother of Lucas, that sweet little old lady in the movie in the form of Ruby Dee, knew damn well where her son’s money came from and what he was getting his brothers into (some more innocent fellas) and she didn’t care because she got to live in a big house. I am sure God didn’t think all that church attending and Thanksgiving prayers made up for the devastation Lucas caused in the world.

The real stories of Rubin Carter and Frank Lucas could have been fine depictions of how evil men destroy the world and how we must fight against them if we want our country to be a decent place to live. Children should see such movies and despise the psychopathic criminals in them and grow up to want to keep such people from wreaking havoc in our communities.

Instead, stars like Denzel Washington make role models out of repulsive human beings men and minimize their evil deeds; which makes Denzel pretty repulsive and evil himself. Maybe Denzel didn’t have to be much of an actor to represent these gangsters on screen; maybe he isn’t that much different from either one of them.

Criminal Profiler Pat Brown