Denzel Washington’s, 70, Big Budget Crime Thriller With Russell Crowe, 61, Is a Global Streaming Hit

Six years after Denzel Washington gave his second Oscar-winning performance in Training Day, he teamed up with Russell Crowe for a gritty crime thriller that’s dominating streaming charts. The pair stars alongside Josh Brolin and Chiwetel Ejiofor in American Gangster, the 2007 true crime docudrama following an outcast New York cop tasked with bringing down Harlem drug kingpin Frank Lucas. American Gangster is streaming on Netflix in the U.S., but it’s also one of the most popular movies globally on Rakuten TV, charting in countries such as Slovenia. American Gangster earned a “certified fresh” 81% score from critics and a 90% rating from audiences on Rotten Tomatoes. The film also grossed $269 million at the box office, managing to turn a profit of its whopping $100 million budget.

American Gangster is based on the article The Return of Superfly, a New York Magazine article written by Mark Jacobson, and Steven Zaillian wrote the script for the film, with Ridley Scott directing. Scott has spoken openly about American Gangster being one of the most difficult productions of his career — the film shot 360 scenes in more than 180 different places. Scott also hired real people from local villages in the Chiang Mai province of Thailand, many of whom were real drug runners for Frank Lucas’ operations. Frank Lucas himself also expressed excitement about the film upon learning of its existence, only to admit that very little of it was true and most of it was heavily dramatized. Frank Lucas died on May 30, 2029, of natural causes. Scott had worked with Russell Crowe seven years prior on Gladiator, the Oscar-winning war epic.