Hoodlum (1997)

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Overlong but riveting, highly visceral mob movie with a difference, as it shows the rise to prominence of "Bumpy" Johnson (Laurence Fishburne). Johnson, fresh from a stint in prison, goes to work for successful Harlem numbers racketeer Stephanie St. Clair (Cicely Tyson), then takes over the operation when she is sent to prison. His approach, unsurprisingly, is much different and more proactive than hers, which comes in handy when they are forced to deal with the activities of Arthur Flegenheimer, a.k.a. "Dutch Schultz" (Tim Roth), a pathologically greedy, flamboyantly nasty creep just full of swagger.Fishburne commands the screen with his calm and cool performance as Bumpy. His Bumpy is a man never caught off guard, a man with his own philosophy and way of life that prevents him from wanting to enter churches. His love story in this fictionalization is Francine Hughes, played by the lovely Vanessa L. Williams, who adds a great deal of humanity to the scenario as she tries to distance herself from Bumpys' actions; even when she is clearly acting in self defense as she shoots a would be assassin, she feels very uneasy about it.Andy Garcia is merely passable as mob boss of the day "Lucky" Luciano, but there are plenty of other despicable antagonists to raise the ire of the audience. Richard Bradford plays a corrupt police captain, calling to mind his role in "The Untouchables", except that here his character is a racist as well. William Atherton plays real life attorney Thomas Dewey, who is portrayed as being just as crooked as anyone in this tale. The radiant Tyson shines in her limited screen time. Chi McBride supplies both comedy relief and a level of heart as Bumpys' cousin "Illinois" Gordon, and Loretta Devine is likable as his lady friend. Queen Latifah isn't given much to do in her small supporting role. Some very fine character actors dot the landscape: Clarence Williams III, real life brothers Mike and Beau Starr, Paul Benjamin, Joe Guzaldo, Ed O'Ross, J.W. Smith, Eddie Bo Smith Jr., and John Toles-Bey. Roth tends to steal the show, although there's nothing subtle about his performance or the way that Schultz is written.On the technical side, some reasonably good period recreation is done, Bill Duke directs with style, and there's a lovely score by Elmer Bernstein as well as a few musical numbers."Hoodlum" is decent entertainment, but that's what it is: entertainment. It's only loosely based on the real stories of the real life people involved, so it isn't to be mistaken for a history lesson.Seven out of 10.

Pros: Great cast, really nice costumes and settings. Fairly good story.Cons: Edgeless directing. Poor acting on some parts. Poor stunt fighting. Poor dialogue and some irrational behavior from characters.Let me first dream what this could have been with the right director; a dark, realistic, gangster drama with both emotions and action, as well as memorable performances.A reality check gives me a bleak movie. It is not exactly bad, but it never takes off in any way. It starts off with a street fight, so poorly performed you'd think it Star Trek from the 60's. It really makes it feel like you're watching a play, and that feeling sticks.The cast is great, although some subpar acting exists. Mainly from the duo of Chi McBride and Loretta Devine, who sometimes seems to play a parody of Afro American stereotypical acting. The weak dialogue and unsharp cutting/directing, hampers the rest of the cast though.What you'll get is a walk through a nice setting, seeing some nice people along the way. But the only thing you'll remember is what it could have been.

This is a movie set in the 1930's in Harlem. It is the height of the depression and a Negro, Bumpy Johnson, has just been released from gaol. He returns to find that the Queen's gambling racket is being threatened by a white man from downtown. Everybody in Harlem is happy with the way things are - people play the numbers game and win enough to put food on the table. But numbers is a very big business and the mafia wants a piece of it. The mafia boss of the time, Lucky Lucino, is content to let it go, but one of his underlings wants a piece of the action and soon a gang war breaks out.This is the typical inter-war style movie with corrupt cops and politicians and crime running rife. The prohibition years are over, but people are making money now by other rackets, and the American system of brutal monopoly is leaving blood on the streets and the corrupt politicians are supporting those who have the most money. It is a time of lawlessness and strife, and in a way we should feel glad we don't live there. Another thing about the time is that the Negro is still very much in the underclass and there is a lot of prejudice and tension between the races.The major theme here is how power corrupts. The Queen is taken to gaol and she gives Bumpy the business to run. Bumpy is a very intelligent man, but he is also very stubborn. He refuses to give into the non-Negros and will continue to fight until one is dead. Unfortunately his stubbornness brings about the death of many innocent people. During this time, his girlfriend walks out on him, and his cousin begins to disown him, yet he refuses to give in because he believes he is right.This movie really looks at the tragedy of this, but it is not that tragic because Bumpy soon sees how he has changed and will begin to change before it is too late. But then with the death of his cousin, one can argue it is too late. His girlfriend has left, and chastises him for being so stubborn that he refuses to step into a church to pay respects for one of the dead. He finally steps into a church to pay respect to his cousin, and then walks straight out. As such we see the beginning of a change, but we don't follow through with it. The problems have been solved, and Harlem has its autonomy - what happens to Bumpy in the future is for the future.

You people are nuts! This is just atrocious film wrecking. The script reminded me of a mad libs where instead of a noun, they just wrote curse words and racial slurs. It felt like the creators were aiming at entertaining the homeless insane demographic instead of intelligent individuals who wouldn't see straight through this malarky. But I have a story with this film that made it worth seeing. There was 7 people in the theater when we stumbled into this car wreck of a movie, my three friends, two other guys a few seats down and an African American couple in front of us. I was so offended by this film's utter lack of cohesive character plot, goals and motivations, creativity, etc., that my friends and I debated with the strangers next to us in the theater whether we should just leave and play area 51, a game we loathed! I was actually worried that because I was white, maybe the couple in front of us would think we were a bunch of racist jerks for leaving half way through, because it seemed to be really pretending that it was a powerful Black statement. Then the AA couple started laughing every time Larry Fishbourne said "N***** pennies" and we stayed. Two thirds in, all 7 of us turned it into a MST3K episode. We were laughing at every other line, inserting show tunes at inappropriate moments and would loudly boo and call the actors names any time the pennies were mentioned. I never would have done this had the AA dude not started throwing Junior Mints at the screen. All in all, terribly wooden acting, eerily clean set design for the 30's, bizarre and frustratingly convoluted plot and lame ass action. But hilarious theater experience.