This gangster story is of a different beat as it follows the efforts of a 1970’s detective of the Manhattan police department, Richard Roberts (Russell Crowe) from taking down a heroin kingpin who has amassed a large criminal and drug empire in New York. This would be Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington). Lucas is smuggling drugs into the country through the returning coffins of America’s fallen soldiers from Vietnam. However Frank Lucas has become the proverbial son of Harlem after the death of the current mob boss and this makes Roberts’ job even harder. Already being an outcast with his own police department, Roberts is led down a road that shows him how two complete strangers can be linked by faith and only one can come out the winner.