Universal Pictures has just released a batch of new images from their upcoming film American Gangster starring Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe.

{sidebar id=1}Academy Award winners DENZEL WASHINGTON (Training Day, The Hurricane) and RUSSELL CROWE (Gladiator, The Insider) join Oscar-winning producer BRIAN GRAZER (A Beautiful Mind, Cinderella Man), director/producer RIDLEY SCOTT (Gladiator, Black Hawk Down) and Academy Award-winning screenwriter STEVEN ZAILLIAN (Schindlers List, Gangs of New York) for a cinematic event that tells the true juggernaut success story of a cult superstar from the streets of 1970s Harlem who rose to the heights of power by becoming the most ruthless figure in his businessand was taken down by an outcast cop driven to bring justice to the streets: American Gangster.

In the early 70s, police corruption was rampant in New York City. The Vietnam War was taking a devastating toll overseas and at home. Soldiers were brought back to the U.S. either in body bags or addicted to an imported opiate called heroinwhich they shared with curious experimenters who became instantly hooked. With the assistance of law enforcement, the mafia operated with relative impunity in this noncompetitive market, selling thousands of kilos of smack to addicts hungry for their product. A privileged and untouchable class of white men paid hundreds of millions to New Yorks judges, lawyers and cops to keep quiet about this mutually beneficial relationship. La Cosa Nostra and their underlings were unbeatable.

Until a black entrepreneur named Frank Lucas (Washington) took over the game.

Nobody used to notice Frank, the quiet apprentice to Bumpy Johnson, one of the inner citys leading postwar black crime bosses. But when his boss suddenly dies, Lucas exploits the opening in the power structure to build his own empire and create his own version of the American success story. Though he had never been to school, Lucas had years of knowledge gleaned from the streets. He applied thisalong with ingenuity and a strict business ethicto come to rule the inner-city drug trade, flooding the streets with a purer product at a better price. Lucas outplays all of the leading crime syndicates and becomes not only one of the citys mainline corrupters, but part of its circle of civic superstars.

Hard-nosed cop Richie Roberts (Crowe) is close enough to the streets to feel a shift of control in the drug underworld. Roberts believes someone is climbing the rungs above the known mafia families and starts to suspect that a black power player has come from nowhere to dominate the scene. Both Lucas and Roberts share a rigorous ethical code that sets them apart from their colleagues, making them lone figures on opposite sides of the law. The destinies of these two men will become intertwined as they approach a confrontation that will not only change their lives, but alter the destiny of an entire generation of New York City.

Click on the thumbnails below to browse IESB's entire gallery for American Gangster!

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