Crowe and Washington Doing Ridley's "American Gangster" ...

Actor Denzel "Training Day" Washington will join Russell "Cinderella Man" Crowe for the drugs and cops feature American Gangster.

Washington has been behind the project for years but costs left the film languishing in 2005 amid fears it would never get made.

Crowe recently joined the cast after reading a revised script.

Premise of the film, based on a true story, to be directed by Sir Ridley Scott of Blade Runner and Gladiator fame, focuses on Washington as a successful New York drug boss who smuggles heroin into the body bags of US soldiers killed in Vietnam, returned by special air to the United States.