Hoodlum

Released by: Olive Films
Released on: July 19th, 2016.
Director: Bill Duke
Cast: Laurence Fishburne, Tim Roth, Vanessa Williams, Andy García, Cicely Tyson, Chi McBride
Year: 1997
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The Movie:

Bill Duke's 1997 film Hoodlum seems to be, more often than not, unjustly lost in the wave of gangster movies that Hollywood was churning out in the nineties - and it deserves better than that. Not only is it a gorgeous looking picture but it features a top notch cast all at the top of their game.

Set in the Harlem of the 1930's, the film tells the story of Bumpy Johnson (Laurence Fishburne), an ex-con who has done his time and who is now back home after that stint in the slammer. Harlem is alive in this era before the war, it's a world full of jazz clubs and nightclubs and most importantly, of business. It's the business side of things that interests Bumpy, and soon enough he's back with his old pal Illinois Gordon (Chi McBride) to try and get his numbers racket back in action. Along the way, Illinois introduces bumpy to a well-intentioned social worker named Francine Hughes (Vanessa Williams).

Bumpy gets brought on by the local 'Queen of Numbers,' an islander named Stephanie St. Clair (Cicely Tyson) who pays him a nice salary to work as her second in command. Francine starts falling for the guy and tries to talk him into staying on the straight and narrow, but this is what Bumpy knows and this is what Bumpy is good at. He also feels like he's helping out the community by employing some of his fellow black men in a time and a place where whites weren't so keen on doing that. Things are going just fine until Dutch Schultz (Tim Roth) decides that he wants a piece of what Harlem has to offer. Under pressure from his own boss, Lucky Luciano (Andy Garcia), Schultz starts to move in on Bumpy and Stephanie's turf… and he's got an itchy trigger finger.

Made a few years after his first Harlem-based gang film, 1991's A Rage In Harlem, Bill Duke's Hoodlum is an ambitious film about an ambitious man. Bumpy is a businessman first and foremost, he almost doesn't see himself as a criminal at all. Of course, the authorities see things differently as do his competitors but Bumpy really does believe in what he's doing - at least to start with. As the story changes, characters evolve and things, understandably, get complicated as matters both financial and romantic come into play. It's a fairly layered film, as it not only tells a typical 'gangster's rise to power' story but it also makes some interesting observations about white gangsters moving in to take from the black gangsters once they've made their business something worth stealing in the first place.

Duke has a good eye for period detail here. The cars, the fashions, the locations (most of which were actually shot in Chicago and not in Harlem itself) all look great and the score from Elmer Bernstein doesn't hurt either. The camerawork is slick and polished and the lighting effectively evocative of the time and the place. The look of the film just feels right. Chris Brancato's script is smart, clever - occasionally witty but pretty much always believable in how it dictates that these characters interact with one another. There's more emphasis here on character than on violence, but when the bullets fly, they have impact, this is not a soft film in that regard.

Of course, this would all be for naught if the performances weren't up to par, but they're solid across the board here. Tim Roth is great as the unhinged Schultz, never quite going over the top but definitely giving his all here. Andy Garcia is also solid as the calmer, cooler and more collected of those who would move in. Chi McBride and Cicely Tyson do great work here too. The standouts are Vanessa Williams and Laurence Fishburne, however. They're given more to do than most of the other characters and they prove their merit here, crafting characters that are believable not only in the more romantic and dramatic scenes, but in the tension that arises between them as well.

Video/Audio/Extras:

Hoodlum arrives on Blu-ray from Olive Films in an AVC encoded 1080p high definition transfer framed in the film's proper 1.85.1 aspect ratio. Mild print damage shows up here and there in the form of small specks but for the most part the picture is clean. Detail is definitely advanced over standard definition and typically crisp with good depth and delineation. Color reproduction is very strong here while black levels are nice and deep but not at the expense of shadow detail. There are no noticeable issues with edge enhancement, compression artifacts or noise reduction and all in all, the movie looks very nice here.

An English language DTS-HD 2.0 Stereo track handles the audio chores nicely. The track is nicely balanced offering solid channel separation. The trumpet-heavy score sounds crystal clear while dialogue is easily discernable and always properly upfront in the mix. There are no problems with any hiss or distortion and the sound effects, gun shots in particular, have good punch and weight behind them. Optional subtitles are provided in English only.

Extras are limited to a trailer for the feature, menus and chapter selection.

The Final Word:

Hoodlum is a better than average gangster film, a glossy but surprisingly underrated picture with strong production values and a great cast. If the story is a little cliché-ridden, the good outweighs the bad as there's both some fun entertainment value to be had here and some impressive artistry as well. Olive's Blu-ray release is barebones but it does look and sound very good indeed - recommended.

Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!