"American Gangster" is a gripping biographical crime drama that tells the true story of Frank Lucas, a notorious gangster from North Carolina who rose to power by smuggling heroin into the United States on American service planes returning from the Vietnam War. The film follows Lucas's meteoric rise and fall, as he becomes Harlem's top crime lord, opening legitimate business fronts and befriending politicians and celebrities, before being finally brought down by a determined task force led by Newark Detective Richie Roberts.