RECOMMENDED Screenwriter Steven Zaillian (“Schindler’s List,” “All The King’s Men”) crafts a solid old-school saga of the all-American rise and fall of an African-American entrepreneur. How old? The end credits put a cap in the face of the audience, in a nod to Edwin S. Porter’s 1903 classic “The Great Train Robbery.” Director Ridley Scott studiously obeys the laws of the gangster genre, just as heroin trafficker Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington) sticks to the corporate protocol of the Italian mafia. Lucas is an exemplary Harlem entrepreneur bringing fiscal efficiency to his hierarchy. Copper Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe) faces the corrupt hierarchy of the New York Police Department. His anomalous professional standards make him a pariah among all the dirty cops who shake down drug dealers. Frank and Richie are heroic loners at odds with their peers. The denouement where they go into buddy mode for big-time payback strains credulity, but many facets of the story track with the careers of real figures. In this period film set during the Vietnam War, you locked your automobile door by inserting a key. Microwave ovens were new. Timeless values are championed by the criminals, not the cops. Kingpin Lucas preaches: “What matters in business is honesty, integrity, hard work, loyalty and never forgetting where you came from.” He tutors underlings about “trademark infringement.” He debates business philosophy with a mafia don who argues that monopolies are un-American. Frank’s last stand: “This is where I’m from. This is where my family is. My business. My mother. This is my place. This is my country. This is America.” Scott and Zaillian, though, never ask if American capitalism is just federally insured gangsterism. With Chiwetel Ejiofor, Cuba Gooding, Jr., Josh Brolin, Ruby Dee and Common. 158m. (Bill Stamets)
Heart: A Review of Soul The real world is soulful, too, in Pixar's bountiful life of the mind.
Seeing The Elephant: A Review Of Babylon The boisterous, brawling yet melancholy "Babylon," is a variation on film history, but more drawing for drama. It's gaudy and mean, celebratory and sorrowful.
Uncanny Ally: A Review Of M3GAN "M3GAN" sells itself in its first handful of seconds in how it introduces the handiwork of roboticist Gemma (Allison Williams, "Get Out") and her present product, PurrPetual Petz from Funki.
