American Gangster is a long and involving urban period drugs tale from America based on a true story and directed by Ridley Scott. Perhaps strangely once you know that Russell Crowe and Denzel Washington are in it, you might expect Crowe to be playing the baddie and Denzel the good guy, which is why refreshingly, Scott has cast them the other way round. Washington here plays young man Frank Lucas who works his way the ladder of the drug trafficking business in the Big Apple, becoming a leading drugs lord and in charge of a massive heroin empire by the height of his powers.

By then, he's virtually become an untouchable, a businessman with influential friends in his pay. He likes to project himself as an upright and decent man with christian values, but of course has a darker side.

Vitally he's got a direct chain to a leading supplier of his drug in South America, cutting out any middle men so the profits he makes are tremendous. On his trail is straight-as-a-die rough diamond detective Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe) who despite minor setbacks along the way, is determined to unravel who's behind the influx of the big H on the streets of New York and nail the scheming villain whoever he may be.

American Gangster as a drugs thriller is well made with decent attention to period detail and giving mileage to both the hunter and the hunted. At over two hours, it seems a little over-long and you also feel you've been here before in other films in this genre. When it comes to the payoff, it doesn't perhaps have quite the same levels of suspense of a film like Heat for example or for that matter, Traffic but this is still a reasonable offering and all the better for being based on a true story and gaining strong points for imaginative casting of the supporting roles as well as the alternative casting of the main ones.