The Real Deal: American Gangster Essay

Francis Ford Coppola’s gangster movie, “ The Godfather”, examines two views of the condemnation of the American dream and America, through the eyes of father and son through many specific aspects of drugs, conflicting views, and balance.

The first instance of corruption that is witnessed from the clip is when Detective Trupo pulls Frank Lucas and his new wife over on their wedding day. At this point, Trupo takes two actions that confirm that his ethics are not ______???______. First, Trupo pulls over Lucas and asks him to exit the vehicle without reasonable cause, then threatens Lucas to make payments to him on the first of each month after seeing that Lucas can afford as much as a fifty thousand dollar chinchilla coat with all of the heroin that he has sold. This situation from the film is explaining that crooked detectives and other law enforcers during the 1970s

The movie and the historic events tell about how The Gangster Squad targeted Mickey Cohen’s business and reputation. The reason why they wished to ruin his reputation is so that he would lose the citizens of Chicago’s trust and that in turn would stop them from getting intertwined with Cohen. When The

In an attempt to escape the “boring” life that I lived in I tried to become a person that everyone liked. Frank changed his name and career several times as a pursuit to achieve his ideal world. But even with all the money and respect he had gained over the years he still felt empty at the end of the day. Annually Carl receives a call from Frank on Christmas Eve, exposing how lonely Frank truly is. Carl boasts, “You have no one else to call!” upon realizing this. Consequent to hearing this it brings Frank back to the reality that Carl Hanratty is in fact, correct. Despite the honour and wealth he has gained, the only person he moderately has a relationship with, is the man attempting to arrest him. One of the few things Frank yearned for was a wife and a family to come home to, then he discovered Brenda. A woman whom he truly loved and cared for, “What if I went to your parents, spoke to your father and asked his permission to marry you?” Despite the risks he was willing to forget about everything he worked for if that meant he got to spend his life with her. But once again reality takes Frank back into its grasp when the FBI crash his engagement party in ambition to finally arrest him. With no choice but to flee frank unwillingly leaves behind the life he so desperately wanted with Brenda. In attempt to outbreak his own life Frank transforms into a whole new person but still is left

POINT: As the movie commences Frank Lucas is already partaking in immoral acts to attain his goal of power and to receive the necessities he aspires for. It is present that in order to attain his goals he must use violence, which begins to destroy his innocent character.

Henry Hill made being a gangster seem like the best job in the world. Of course the power, notoriety, and money all came with a price.

Frank Serpico starts as a fresh young cop out on patrol. He excels to become an undercover police officer busting drug deals and other gangsters. His partners try to share some of the money that they extort from the local criminals and he refuses. He then tries to take action against the other dirty cops but his superiors do nothing and just turn a blind eye. Realizing how corrupt the department is Serpico continues to try to find someone who will listen and hold everyone accountable while his “partners” try to bring him down for snitching. They repeatedly put him in danger hoping to get rid of him. He is eventually shot by a drug dealer, after being transferred to the Narcotics squad because he gets no back up from his partners when in trouble.

Tony Montana was a refugee from Cuba, someone who didn’t want to settle with washing dishes when he first came into this country. Even though his actions were not the right actions or the type of work that every American should do to progress in life, he maintained that motivation and searched for the so called American Dream. He started from being Franks body guard, and he ends up to being the leader and trafficking drugs to other parts of the world. In this film we see the author making a statement about the facts of organized crime the American Dream by using Tony as a prime example of someone trying to achieve the American Dream. “The American Film Institute defines the gangster-film genre as centering on "organized crime or maverick criminals in a twentieth-century setting" (AFI, 2008)”

Ridley Scott’s American Gangster (2007) conveys the true life story of Frank Lucas. The main character Frank Lucas is a dominant heroin dealer that lives in Harlem, New York. After the death of his boss Bumpy Johnson, a lucrative drug dealer, Frank realizes that he must continue Bumpy’s legacy. Frank devises a plan that he will build his own empire and create his own version of the American Dream. He believed and understood the drug world sufficient enough to thoroughly change the drug game dramatically and single handedly.

Frank Lucas—a vile, disgusting, and corrupt individual—used his knowledge of business to propel him into the infamous position of the American gangster. He was a very intelligent individual who buttressed many aspects of an executive leader. Thus, after Bumpy Johnson dies, Frank becomes aware of what he must do to ensure that Bumpy's business operates as usual. It is here that Frank transforms from his somewhat subservient yet taciturn behavior into the executive leadership position of an infamous and democratic gangster. Through the character of Frank Lucas, the movie referred to the leadership concepts of power motive, business knowledge, and the dark sides of charismatic leadership.

The Godfather is the “dark-side of the American dream story” (Turan, pp2). The film follows the practices of a fictional Italian mafia family, the Corleone’s. Though most Americans do not condone the practices of the Italian mafia, they cannot deny that Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather is a cinematic masterpiece. This film gave insight to a mysterious way of life that the average person does not have knowledge of. As the audience is educated about the mafia they also are introduced to many stereotypes.

With Prohibition present within the United States in the 1920s to the 1930s, corruption mixed with organized crime is widespread. In the city of Chicago, from the judges and the mayor downward, crime and corruption flourishes through illegal distribution of alcohol, or also known as bootlegging. A major player during this chaotic period, gang boss Al Capone, has the entire city, including law enforcement, politicians, and business owners, bowing to his will through a fear combined with violence and extortion. The opening scene demonstrates the ruthlessness of gang violence in Chicago. Despite the hopelessness, there are some who are aware of the city’s criminal status and want to bring Capone to justice. Eliot Ness, a Treasury Department agent, is put in charge of putting a stop to Capone’s illicit operations. With the help of a veteran Chicago cop, Jimmy Malone, a Treasury accountant, Oscar Wallace, and a police academy cadet, George Stone, the four set out on a crusade to thwart Capone and his organized crime gang. After several successful interceptive raids, the four men began to develop a reputation within the city. With the help of Oscar, the group of four realize that their only chance of legally apprehending Capone is to connect him with a crime of tax evasion. They believe that they finally have the advantage over the organized crime, but what they soon come to realize is that many who hold power in the city are corrupt and actively protect Capone. As conflicts

The movie that I chose to do my review on is the 1990 film GoodFellas. This movie chronicles the life of Henry Hill and his rise from being a small time assistant to the mob in his childhood, to when he grows up and is a full blown gangster involved in many different aspects of the organized crime group’s illegal activities. The reason that I chose GoodFellas is because it fits the requirements of this assignment nicely and it’s just a really well made movie with an all-star cast and a great story. To begin, I will cover the eight attributes of organized crime and how they are portrayed in the movie. Next I will cover the laws that were used against the organized crime group in the movie. Lastly, I will cover some of the law enforcement techniques that were used by law enforcement in the movie to capture the organized crime members. We as a society often glamorize organized crime, but in reality it is a nasty business of corruption and violence that has no business in modern society.

The movie starts with the introduction of the Bureau of Prohibition’s, Elliot Ness arriving at the Chicago police station. Ness is determined to stop Al Capone’s by closing down his liquor business in Chicago. His first attempt to raid a liquor warehouse is ruined when someone

Now we will transition into a movie that is considered to be the best of its genre “Goodfellas” made in 1990 centered around the rise and fall of Henry Hill’s life portrayed by Ray Liotta in the mob based on a true story it is considered to be one of the best gangster films to ever be made in cinema. There had been many movies before the release of Goodfellas however what Martin Scorsese had chosen to do was take a different approach to the gangster movies by making it through the point of view of a real life person that had gone through the mob life and it allowed people to connect to the movie more. We have seen many great mob movies before such as “The Godfather” trilogy and others along that lone however we did not get to see the movie through the point of view of someone who is a real life person instead we saw it through the eyes of a made up protagonist. In an interview Scorsese stated that he wanted to capture the life of that period of time it was based upon, “When I talk about recreating the spirit of that world, the music is as important as the dialogue and the behavior. From 1947 on, music scored what was happening in the streets, the back rooms. And it affected, sometimes, the behavior of the people, because this music was playing in the streets. Jukebox were brought out during the summer. Windows were open, and you could hear what everybody else was listening to. It expresses the excitement of the time.