Overrated

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

Colorful, violent, a good cast, and excellent period recreation highlight this depression era Gangster Movie. Directed by Actor Bill Duke, it is at times talky and languishes a bit, but the action pieces are stylish and visceral.Guilty of repetitive speech making and some over acting, the Movie waivers between High Camp and a serious Character Study. Tim Roth almost steals the Show with a sleazy, disgusting, foul-mouthed portrayal of Dutch Schultz, but Laurence Fishburne as Bumpy Johnson, and Vanessa Williams in a supporting Role make their mark.The Film is never boring even though it tends to drag in spots and is over-long to a fault. Overall it is a mostly fictitious account that is worth a watch for its style, pizazz, great period detail, and brutal Gangster violence that the Genre demands.

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.

Hoodlum (1997): Dir: Bill Duke / Cast: Laurence Fishburne, Tim Roth, Andy Garcia, Vanessa Williams, Cicely Tyson: Well made gangster film that evaporates into a litter of bullets. It regards lower standards of living and hostile attitude. Based on a true story in the 1930's Harlem with a triangle turf battle in motion. Laurence Fishburne leads the patrol against Tim Roth and Andy Garcia. He is smart and tough but unable to balance his personal life with romance. Bodies pile up and nobody really wins in the end. The concept still holds interest although the screenplay grows repetitious and weary. Director Bill Duke does a fine job with fantastic art direction. This film successfully captures the period for which it addresses but perhaps a tighter screenplay would have been beneficial. Fishburne holds his own as a gangster trying to be the gangster and the romantic interest. This will not work to his favour. Vanessa Williams delivers a strong performance as his love interest who is questioning the lifestyle he is involved in. Roth and Garcia overact as the two other opposing gang leaders who will end up on the receiving end of bad luck. This is not terrible filmmaking but the screenplay isn't as ambitious as it could have been. It does succeed in present the period for which it represents. Its purpose is to create the reality of gang lifestyles but the screenplay has more bark than bite. Score: 6 / 10

I wanted to love this film if only because it presented a bit of Black Americana that had previously gone all but entirely unmentioned. Like many Americans I've been developed to have a strong sense of attraction to both real and fictional crime personalities. Cagney, Robinson, Bogart. Capone, Luciano, Gotti… You know the drill.This is probably why I wanted to love it, but the film just wouldn't allow me to. It never gets exciting enough.In Hoodlum the main characters; Johnson, Queenie, Hewlett, Schultz, Luciano; are all played just well enough to give you a basic outline of how the real life persons were related to one another. Otherwise they're basically stock representations of what Hollywood seems to always believe everyone wants to see in genre crime films, or maybe just something Dukes felt was necessary to make it fit the genre along with all the the typical gobbledy gook that's SUPPOSED to cause you to react in a certain way. "Ewwww! He places a bit of human anatomy on the night club table!" "Oh my! The poor man has distanced himself from those closest to him in order to fulfill a noble, if cruel, mission!"Yet it never gets horrible enough to really make you feel it. A woman is murdered, but you don't see anything beyond her fright. Even her boyfriend's reaction at finding her body isn't given enough attention for you to understand what he feels. You're always 'watching' other people react to situations… You're never in a position to see their feelings or to truly feel anything yourself.Romance comes together weakly and ends weakly. Chattering tommy gun montages float but no bodies shiver. Death comes and goes like Spring rain.Roth's Schultz is, to my mind's eye, the only thing near a believable performance. He dresses, speaks and conducts himself much the way the real Schultz would've. The 'race' issue is weirdly half-hyped throughout this film though it is presented in a manner easily recognizable as commonplace during the period. The film makes the mistake of making this almost too important a part of the story by having it pop into the script when it hardly matters. That a corrupt 1930s chief of police is also a die-hard racist and some black doesn't like it and says so is not quite as cutting edge as it might've been 25 years ago.I'm no longer amused by Luciano being shown as the dapper smoothie. The real person wasn't as dapper as he was clever.All the same, it isn't likely that Luciano would've had a man shot in the back of his own limousine while he's sitting right next to him protecting his face from blood-splatter with his spotless Panama hat. Do you know how much a Panama hat cost? They should've thrown in a joke to help that scene along.The Dewey portrayal was totally ridiculous. His relationship to Luciano was never so chummy as the film wants to suggest. Far from it in fact.What the film did do is give me a thirst to learn more about the real people. It was nice to learn why Clarence Williams' Hewlett character stood so firmly with Schultz. (In real life Hewlett's operation had been knocked out of prominence by Queenie's gang); that Queenie had been attracted to Bumpy's style and bravado; that Queenie sent a message to Schultz while he lay dying in a hospital helps to lend some validity to this movie's suggestion of how some troubles may have been fomented between Schultz and Luciano.They skip over valuable and interesting detail in favor of weak emotional inference. Offering a a touch of supposedly, "meaningful-to-blacks" religious suggestion. An odd blend of Christianity and voodoo. Some grinning church toady at the start and finish of the story. Who really needed this? Attaching blacks to religion is just a longtime stereotype in America anyway. Everybody knows it, so please stop already!They had everything they needed but didn't handle the pieces well enough to make this the winner it might've been. Even the music sounded as though it had been lifted from Morricone and Coppola. Why no Ellington; Basie; Bird???? What the heck ? ? ? Bumpy might've had pretensions but it's very likely that he preferred to listen to the hot music of his time.Pardon me. It's my first time here. Not the worst thing I've ever seen but I'd suggest you watch it in bed.