American gangster netflix

2007 film by Ridley Scott

American Gangster is a 2007 American biographicalcrime film directed and produced by Ridley Scott and written by Steven Zaillian.

The film is loosely based on the criminal career of Frank Lucas, a gangster from La Grange, North Carolina who smuggled heroin into the United States on American service planes returning from the Vietnam War, before being detained by a task force led by Newark Detective Richie Roberts.

The film stars Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe, with co-stars Ted Levine, John Ortiz, Josh Brolin, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Ruby Dee, Lymari Nadal and Cuba Gooding Jr.

Development for the film initially began in 2000, when Universal Pictures and Imagine Entertainment purchased the rights to a New York magazine story about the rise and fall of Lucas.

Two years later, screenwriter Steven Zaillian introduced a 170-page scriptment to Scott. Original production plans were to commence in Toronto for budget purposes; howev