Hoodlum

I thought this looked okay when it came to cinemas in 1998, but I never quite made it to the pictures when it was on. I’ve never really gone for gangster movies anyway, but this one caught my eye.

So, here I am six years later reviewing the film after watching it for the first time. And I gotta say, it's just slightly above average as far as gangster movies go. Performances are all great and the authenticity and action is pretty neat, but there is just one major failing which is always, always the most important…

"Think about your future… not our demise"

It’s 1934 and Ellsworth ‘Bumpy’ Johnson (Laurence Fishburne) is fresh out of a five-year stretch and when he re-enters Harlem it’s not quite the way he remembers it. Poverty abounds and the area is still reeling from the Depression. He soon reconnects with his friends and takes a position working with Madame Queen (Cicely Tyson), the undisputed leader of the Harlem numbers racket. However, about this time, another feels he deserves a slice of this action, Dutch Schultz (Tim Roth in perfectly villainous form). He is an ex-underling of ‘Lucky’ Luciano (Andy Garcia), the undisputed leader of the numbers racket on the white side of the tracks.

So it starts with a little pushing and a little shoving, like it always does, until Schultz gets crooked cops to put Madame Queen away. She leaves Bumpy in charge and pretty soon there’s a full scale gang war erupting on the streets with innocent and guilty alike being gunned down all over. Schultz and Bumpy continue going head to head for months on end, while Luciano sits back and attempts to get the matter sorted, but it appears that a violent end is all that can possibly sort this situation out.

This interminable wait while the two gang leaders counter and attack is where Hoodlum falls down. Running at 125 minutes, there isn’t really enough story to support the length of the film and even though interspersed with action scenes and people getting shot or tortured, it isn’t quite enough to maintain solid interest. The film is well made and as noted, brilliantly acted, but the substance of the plot is just lacking a bit of dynamic pacing that could have really thrown things along at a better speed. Perhaps a judicious editing of unnecessarily long scenes and the removal of less important others may have helped here.

At any rate, it’s still a good gangster movie and while not in the league of some of the other more defining gangster pics (I’m sure I need not outline titles here) it’s still worth a look and is a pretty nice transfer for the price.

The transfer, as just noted above, is quite clear and just off razor sharp. While having a few film artefacts, these aren’t prevalent and appear more often near reel changes as mostly black and white specks. There is also some minor film jitter, but this is as the film opens and it doesn’t really return for the duration. There is also a curious blue film burn that appears at random intervals along the left-hand edge of the screen. This is infrequent and doesn’t distract too heavily.

Delivered in the aspect ratio of 1.77:1 (approximately, according to the case) and anamorphically enhanced, the film makes several nice uses of the widescreen with some cool street shots of New York and Harlem. Very little CGI has been visibly employed and so it blends fairly well into the backgrounds and appears authentic. Colours are bright and clean and flesh tones look natural, while shadow detail is about average and blacks are true.

The Dolby Digital 5.1 surround mix is very nice here and revolves around the sound stage evenly and frequently, creating a fully immersive soundscape. Dialogue is mostly of the period and there are many Tim Roth swears here if you’re offended by such things. Gunfire gets a mildly extreme volume here that is definitely louder than the rest of proceedings, but thankfully there isn’t all that much gunfire for a gangster film, preferring to use hand tools and such for murders. Nice.

Elmer Bernstein’s score is great here and so well suited to the film. This gets into the surrounds a lot too and is split up into different layers of instruments from a whole orchestral range. A very impressive soundtrack in this regard, it suits any necessary mood very aptly.

Only the trailer here in this budget release, but that’s okay. This runs for two minutes in what I assume is the same aspect ratio as the film’s presentation and includes 16:9 enhancement.

If you’re a fan of the gangster film or any of these lead actors, you can find numerous worse gangster films than this. Fishburne is awesome (although once or twice he leans into pre-Morpheus-mode) in his portrayal of a man with the good of the people at heart, but one who is corrupted by power and greed. Garcia plays evenly here but is wasted for the most part, while Tim Roth’s greasy, uneducated, criminal lowlife Dutch Schultz is superb.

There’s also a huge cast of ensemble performers of note filling out the story here, which as noted does run a little too long and slowly, but this probably won’t (or shouldn’t) dissuade the gangster film fans.

Allover, a nice collection filler, but not among the very best of the genre.