Ridley Scott’s association with Crowe goes back a long way (2000’s Oscar-winning Gladiator apart from 2006’s A Good Year) and you get to witness the sweet combination yet again in American Gangster. The film is “based on a true story” where the gangster in conversation is Frank Lucas, a role played splendidly by Denzel Washington.

African-American Lucas did the unthinkable by monopolising the Heroin business and possibly being the first black gangster to start an organised crime family like the Italians.

You journey back in time to the America of the 70s where the urban youth is riding on a high from drugs, the prime supplier being Lucas. When New Jersey detective Richie Roberts’ (Crowe) partner, a junkie himself, succumbs to a drug overdose, Roberts sets out to nip the problem in the bud. The complications, Roberts discovers, are colossal since a large section of cops is in cahoots with the drug dealers.

Things are troublesome on the personal front as well for this honest cop as he battles with his wife for custody of his son, but a quitter is not what he is, and his grit will eventually bring him face-to-face with heroin kingpin Lucas.

Real-to-the-core performances by Washington and Crowe bestow a realistic feel to this film that drew 3 Golden Globe nominations and will hopefully take home an Oscar. Lucas’s dual nature (a family man and a perfect gentleman who is also perfectly capable of smashing your face to a pulp if need be) has been etched out so beautifully that it becomes impossible to dismiss him as a “bad guy” and hate him for it. You wish that things don’t turn out too badly for him, though at the same time you want to see Roberts’ relentless efforts rewarded.

American Gangster is a good watch for many reasons, the biggest one being, it never feels like a movie. You become one of the spectators standing in the corner of Harlem’s ghetto watching all the action unfolding before your very eyes. And the two hours plus running time of this gangster movie hardly seems a strain.