Bill Duke, if you've heard of him at all, probably comes to your recollection as that big, bald, black guy who fought with
Arnold Schwarzenegger in
Commando, and alongside him in
Predator (he died in both), and who has generally appeared in films and on television as an intimidating bad guy. But an interesting tidbit is that in addition to his 50+ film and television appearances, he has directed almost as many things as he's been in. One of these is a 1997 film -- Hoodlum -- about
gang wars between
organized crime factions in
Great Depression New York, and specifically about the oft overlooked
African American gangsters, who managed to carve out
Harlem turf amidst the typically more politically powerful Irish and Italian organizations.
Laurence Fishburne (here just a few years prior to his most famous role in
The Matrix) plays Elmore "Bumpy" Johnson, who we see released from prison in the beginning, and joining the organization of Madame Queen, who runs Harlem's numbers racket (essentially a low rent three-number lotto). Eventually, Johnson becomes Queen's enforcer, and when Queen is jailed, she insures that he goes from enforcer to boss, playing the
Robin Hood card to a degree by helping out Harlem's people with the largess afforded by that position. But Johnson is not alone in seeking to harness this power, and so he must contend against the scenery chewing of
Tim Roth as
Dutch Schultz (whose real name, for what it's worth was the much less gangsterish 'Arthur Flegenheimer'), who wanted to horn in on that action, and
Andy Garcia as Italian mob boss
Lucky Luciano. Queen wants Johnson to run things diplomatically and nonviolently (to the extent that such is possible), and Johnson's new love interest, Francine (played by
Vanessa Williams) hopes to curb his vengeful bent as well. But what sort of gangster movie would this be, then? Instead, Johnson and Luciana make a deal which shuts Shultz out; and violence erupts, beginning with the brutal murder of one of Johnson's closest friends, and devolving from there into a bunch of tit-for-tat attacks and counterattacks, with a few clever twists (displays of Johnson's strategic cleverness) as to how they are pulled off.
The film, like the
bullets flying about in it, is hit-and-miss. I'll not spoil the ending except to note that I found it to be disappointing and a bit too Hollywood -- does Bumpy Johnson manage to reign in his conflicting desires and find redemption? And it has been noted that it deviates from history on a number of points, perhaps unnecessarily so -- most indiscriminately in that prosecutor (and future governor/failed presidential candidate
Thomas Dewey) is portrayed as being quite chummy with Luciano, quite the opposite of the true situation. Still, the film is crisply imagined in terms of bringing the viewer right into the 1930s, and has some great moments. If you've got a stomach for violence and occasional bouts of plot holes, wooden dialogue, characters making ill-thought-out choices, those great moments and that sumptuous scenery may very well be for you.