NBC Universal has been hit with a $55 million defamation suit by three former Drug Enforcement Administration agents who claim that American Gangster "tarnished hundreds of reputations" by stating in its final text that [um, spoiler alert, I guess] a collaboration between heroin kingpin Frank Lucas and New Jersey detective Richard Roberts "led to the convictions of three-quarters of New York City's Drug Enforcement Agency." While Universal points out that the film's text explicitly doesn't say anything about the federal agency itself, the lawsuit counters that "the public believed the film's text referred to federal DEA agents, not police officers." Further speaking for "the public," Dominic Amorosa, attorney for the plaintiffs, said, "The only reason people went to see the film is because they thought it was a true story when really it is a pack of lies." Amorosa's statement would no doubt come as a surprise to, I don't know, Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe—not to mention every single American moviegoer, who, let's face it, would probably rank "verisimilitude" somewhere after "used cool Jay-Z song in trailer" in their reasons for seeing any biopic.
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