Posts Tagged ‘Right Hand Man’
Fast and Furious Movie Review
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Fast and Furious Movie – Plot After a successful run of hijacking fuel tankers in the Dominican Republic, Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) has become an international criminal. Under increasing pressure from the local police, Dom’s partner Han (from the third film) decides to flee to Tokyo. Dom tries to convince Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) to run away again with him to another country. She refuses, and so he leaves her. (The prologue ends here.)Some time later, Letty is found to have been shot dead in her wrecked car. Dom returns to the scene of her murder just outside of L.A.. There, he discovers traces of nitromethane, which allows him to lead a personal investigation up to a certain David Park, who had purchased the nitromethane for the driver who killed Letty. Park is coerced into helping Dom get a spot in a street race, arranged by Ramon Campos, where he will supposedly find Letty’s killer.Meanwhile, Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker), now an FBI agent, is assigned to track down a notorious drug lord named Arturo Braga. Brian’s investigation also leads him to David Park. He arrives at Park’s apartment while Dom is still interrogating him. At the FBI bureau, Park also tells Brian that the aforementioned street race grants the winner a spot on the team that traffics heroin across the United States-Mexico border for Braga. Dom and Brian participate in the race, and Dom wins. Having lost the race, Brian uses his position at the FBI to wrongfully arrest Dwight Mueller, another of Braga’s drivers, in order to usurp Mueller’s spot on the team. Ramon Campos, Braga’s right hand man, invites the drivers to a party, where Dom ends up in a confrontation with a driver called Fenix, and Brian looks for signs of Braga.The next day, the team’s drivers and their cars are smuggled into Mexico to receive the heroin which they are to import across the border at night. They are to meet with Fenix en route and pass through a path of tunnels to evade the surveillance systems used to monitor the borders. Gisele, Braga’s liason, gives Dom a subtle warning in the form of the Spanish phrase “vaya con Dios” After the run, Dom realizes that the drivers are routinely shot and killed after each import job, to avoid having to pay them. Letty, having been in the same situation, was the only driver to get away when they shot her team. The ensuing pursuit led to her car crash and getting shot. Now, just before shooting Brian and Dom, Fenix admits with no remorse that he killed Letty. Suddenly, the cars behind them explode due to sabotage by Dom, who had anticipated the betrayal. Brian uses this diversion to hijack one of the Hummers carrying the heroin, and escape the gunfire with Dom.Back in L.A., they hide the Hummer in the LAPD impound lot, and Brian claims that Dom now owes him a “10-second car”, echoing Dom’s line from the first movie. Dom smashes the window of an impounded Subaru Impreza WRX STi, which he “gives” to Brian. They go to the Torrettos’ house, where Dom learns that Brian had been contacted by Letty, who had agreed to infiltrate Braga’s organization to collect information in exchange for clemency for Dom, so that he could return home to her in LA. This is how she had ended up being one of the drivers for the Braga import job which led to her death. Mia forgives Brian for his past betrayal five years earlier.The next day, he tells his superiors about his plan to lure Braga into a trap, offering him his heroin back in exchange for $6 million, which Braga is to deliver himself. However, Brian requests that the FBI pardon Dom before proceeding with the plan. Campos agrees to Brian’s deal, not knowing that the FBI is poised to arrest Braga at the exchange site. However, the FBI only succeeds in apprehending Braga’s decoy, realizing too late that Campos is the real Braga. Because of this error, Braga is able to evade capture and flees to Mexico, out of the FBI’s jurisdiction. Read the rest of this entry » |
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American Gangster Box Office
American Gangster Box Office Plot
Ellsworth “Bumpy” Johnson, a disciplined and intelligent black gangster, runs much of Harlem and imparts his wisdom onto his former driver turned right-hand man, Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington). Johnson dies of a heart attack in 1968, at an electronics store. Frank dislikes the new, flashy gangsters and decides to take control. To gain money and power, he travels to Bangkok, Thailand, and with the help of his “cousin” who is an Army Staff NCO, strikes a deal with a Chinese nationalist general in the Golden Triangle of Southeast Asia, who supplies him with pure heroin. Starting with a first shipment of 100 kilograms, Frank has the drugs transported back to America via military service planes. His final shipment comprises two tons hidden in the coffins of seven dead U.S. soldiers from the Vietnam War.
Meanwhile, Newark, New Jersey detective Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe) is juggling a failing marriage, late-night law school classes, and his police career. When Richie and his partner, Javier Rivera, discover nearly $1 million in unmarked bills in a car, Richie resists temptation and turns the money in. His rare honesty makes him a hated member of his precinct, causing his partner to be exiled from the force, while Richie’s rampant womanizing behavior and undercover double life leads his wife to seek a divorce and custody of their son. After his exiled partner dies from overdosing on “Blue Magic”, a relatively new and powerful type of heroin being sold for less money than its competition, Richie’s honesty catches him a break when his superior Captain Lou Toback (Ted Levine) puts him in charge of a newly created task force to stop major drug trafficking in Essex County, New Jersey by going after the actual supplier, rather than the middle-men. Richie handpicks honest cops and gets to work on finding who is supplying Blue Magic.
Frank’s unique drug supply enables him to sell pure heroin, as contrasted with the adulterated product sold by his rivals, and at a lower price, because he cut out the middle men in the supply chain. He creates a brand “Blue Magic”, the same heroin that Richie’s partner had died from earlier, and with an effective monopoly on quality product, Frank quickly makes a fortune and buys several nightclubs and apartments. He moves his family from North Carolina to New Jersey, where he purchases a large estate for his humble mother. His five brothers are enlisted as his lieutenants in the drug trade – forming “The Country Boys” who work together to traffic and sell dope on Harlem streets. During his rise, Frank meets and falls in love with Eva, a Puerto Rican beauty queen. Through his discipline, organization, and willingness to kill those in his way, Frank quickly rises to the top of the Harlem drug and crime scene.
As Frank’s business prospers, he makes a point of operating quietly and dressing with a modest conservatism both as a sign of strength and to avoid attracting the attention of the law. However, Frank disregards this habit for his wife for one ostentatious night out, attending the Fight of the Century between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, in a gaudy chinchilla fur coat and hat, along with a ringside seat. As it happens, Roberts is on duty observing the event and sees this unknown, but obviously wealthy person associating with high-level criminals, as well as having better seats than the Italian mafia. Roberts becomes suspicious, and he begins to investigate this unknown (to him) figure in New York organized crime.
Even as Frank realizes he has exposed himself to police scrutiny, he must make deals with the Italian Mafia, in this case Lucchese crime family Mob boss Dominic Cattano (Armand Assante), and fend off corrupt NYC detectives, such as Det. Trupo (Josh Brolin), who attempt to extort and threaten him. Trupo’s dislike of Frank is capped when his prized Shelby Mustang is bombed before his eyes. Frank must also contend with local crime figure Nicky Barnes (Cuba Gooding, Jr.), who is taking some of Frank’s product, diluting it himself, and selling it under Frank’s “Blue Magic” brand name. Unidentified assassins try to kill Frank’s wife, further destabilizing him and threatening his marriage. Things take a turn for the worse when Frank sees the U.S. military vacating Vietnam, which in turn cuts off his primary heroin transportation. His Kuomintang supplier sympathetically tells him “Quitting while you are ahead…is not the same as quitting.”
Richie catches another break when his men witness Frank’s cousin shooting a woman. They use the driver’s predicament to get him to wear a wire. The wire allows Richie and his task force to discover when a plane carrying drugs is landing, though Richie is ordered to cease his search of the coffins by a Federal agent who snarls an anti-Semitic slur at him. Meanwhile, Trupo leads his band of police officers to Frank’s mansion where they take Frank’s emergency cash supply. Frank is enraged at what Trupo did, and sets out to kill him and other associated officers. Frank’s mother pleads that he not go through with it, and Frank decides not to murder Trupo. When the plane lands, Richie and his men follow the drugs into Newark’s projects and obtain a warrant. A huge group of police and detectives attack the drug apartments en masse and a large shootout ensues. Frank is at church when the bust goes down, but he is arrested after the service ends. Frank and Richie finally meet, and Frank’s attempts to threaten Richie are unsuccessful. Richie tells Frank that he will go to prison for the rest of his life unless he provides all the information he has, and accurately.
With no other options, Frank decides to provide names of numerous other criminals, including his and Richie’s common enemies: corrupt NYC detectives. Numerous corrupt cops are arrested, and a distraught Trupo kills himself to avoid arrest. Richie, having passed the bar exam, prosecutes Frank. Some time after the Lucas trial, he eventually leaves the prosecutor’s office, and becomes a defense attorney. The first client he takes is Frank. Because of his cooperation, Frank receives a relatively light sentence of 15 years rather than the original 70. He is arrested in 1975. At the film’s end, he steps out of jail in 1991 significantly older and out of place. Richie Roberts is waiting for him they get a cup of coffee and walk the streets where Frank’s drug empire once ruled. As they walk down the street, they bump into some teenagers Frank stares them down. The kids leave and Frank says “every fool gets to be young once” they turn around and Richie grabs his arm pulling him back from a speeding car.
American Gangster Box Office Cast
- Denzel Washington as Frank Lucas
- Russell Crowe as Det. Richard “Richie” Roberts
- John Ortiz as Det. Rivera
- Lymari Nadal as Eva Kendo Lucas
- Chiwetel Ejiofor as Huey Lucas
- Josh Brolin as Det. Trupo
- Ted Levine as Capt. Lou Toback
- RZA as Moses Jones
- Malcom Goodwin as Jimmy Zee
- Ruby Dee as Mama Lucas
- Armand Assante as Dominic Cattano
- Cuba Gooding Jr. as Nicky Barnes
- Carla Gugino as Laurie Roberts
- Idris Elba as Tango
- Jon Polito as Rossi
- Roger Bart as U.S. Attorney
- Clarence Williams III as Ellsworth “Bumpy” Johnson
- Clifford “T.I.” Harris, Jr. as Steve Lucas
- Common as Turner Lucas
- Delron Mims as Frank’s younger brother
American Gangster Box Office Development
In 2000, Universal Studios and Imagine Entertainment purchased the rights to “The Return of Superfly”, a New York magazine story by Mark Jacobson about the rise and fall of the 1970s heroin kingpin Frank Lucas.[3] In 2002, screenwriter Steven Zaillian brought a 170-page script to director Ridley Scott, who expressed interest in making two films from it. However, Scott did not immediately pursue the project. In November 2003, Universal and Imagine entered negotiations with Brian De Palma to direct Tru Blu, with a script by Zaillian based on Frank Lucas.Zaillian interpreted the story as one of “American business and race”, focusing the script thematically on corporate business. Production was initially slated for a spring 2004 start.In March 2004, the studio entered new negotiations with Antoine Fuqua to direct, as well as Denzel Washington to star in the film as Frank Lucas. The following May, Benicio Del Toroentered negotiations to star as Detective Richie Roberts, who brought down Lucas. Production of Tru Blu was reset to begin in early fall 2004, with the film slated for a release date of June 3, 2005.In September 2004, Dania Ramirez entered negotiations to join the cast of the film, now titled American Gangster.
Universal Studios reported that it greenlit American Gangster with a budget of $80 million, which escalated to $93 million, with $10 million for development costs and $3 million for the delay of the production start date. Sources close to the director insist that the budget was $93 million from the beginning. The studio also sought for American Gangster to be produced in Toronto rather than New York City to save money, but Fuqua resisted the re-location. The studio’s parent company General Electric received tax credits in New York City, so production was moved to the city. The move, however, inflated the budget to $98 million. Fuqua’s camp insisted that it was seeking ways to reduce the budget, but the studio contended several aspects of the project under him. The director had wanted to film a Vietnam sequence in Thailand and to cast notable names such as Ray Liotta and John C. Reilly in minor roles. To add to the studio’s budgetary concerns, Fuqua was rewriting the script during the preproduction process. The director also did not have a shot-list, final locations, and supporting actors signed to initiate production.
Fuqua was fired on October 1, 2004, four weeks before principal photography would begin. The studio cited creative differences for the director’s departure.After Fuqua’s departure, the studio met with Peter Berg to take over directing the film, and Denzel Washington had approved of the choice. Due to the search potentially escalating a budget already in the US$80 million range and the difficulty in recouping the amount based on the film’s subject matter, Universal canceled production of American Gangster, citing time constraints and creative elements for its reason. The cancellation cost the studio $30 million, of which $20 million went to Washington and $5 million went to del Toro due to their pay or play contracts. Entertainment Weekly reported that Fuqua’s ambition to produce the film was primarily based on the prospect of an African-American director and an African-American actor leading a big-budget film that would potentially be nominated for Oscars.
In March 2005, American Gangster was revived as Universal and Imagine entered negotiations with Terry George to revise Zaillian’s script and direct the film, which was to be financed with a target budget of US $50 million. The following May, Will Smith was approached to replace Washington as Frank Lucas, though an offer would be held off until George completed his revision of the script.Producer Brian Grazer and Imagine executive Jim Whitaker decided against pursuing George’s attempt and to return to Zaillian’s vision.In February 2006, Ridley Scott entered talks with the studio to take over American Gangster from George, returning to Zaillian’s draft as the film’s basis. Washington returned to his role as Lucas, and Russell Crowewas attached to star as Roberts.
