Washington has the better part, reflecting Lucas’s determination to get more than a share of the pie and building his Harlem-based empire that requires him to deal with the Italian mafia and the drug source in Asia, as well as fending off crooked cops who want to horn in on the profits. But Crowe’s acting in the role of Richie Roberts is something to crow about too. Roberts steadfastly resists pressure to use his law enforcement position to reap spoils from drug dealers and resist potentially lucrative temptation. He is determined stay honest and bring down Lucas, along with cops on the take or stealing drug money. Crowe handles the part with tight-lipped coolness that counterpoints Lucas’s more flamboyant style.

The film is also fascinating for its candid link of international drug smuggling to the Vietnam War. As a by-product of that misbegotten and costly adventure, corrupt soldiers were using their position to make drug-running deals that enabled the cocaine to be brought over on military planes. Or so the film demonstrates. When the war ends, a major channel ends with it. In one of the film’s best sequences, based on information he has, Roberts orders coffins bringing back Vietnam casualties to be opened and inspected. There’s also an absorbing face-off after Lucas’s arrest, when he and Roberts challenge each other in a test of wills.

The supporting cast has been impeccably selected with the result that the mosaic of the milieu is thoroughly convincing. The film never reaches the profundity of Coppola’s “The Godfather” or even “The Sopranos” series with respect to digging into the private lives of gangsters. But the surface job bristles with action and insight to how drug-dealing and corruption work and the ruthlessness involved. One also gets a picture what an ambitious African-American drug dealer must do to carve out his place in the hierarchy.