Tss5078 People who have seen American Gangster or are regular viewers of the TV show, Mobsters, will know who Bumpy Johnson was and know the story behind Hoodlum. For those of you who don't, Johnson was a member of an organized crime group, in Harlem, during the 1930's. He was also the man who mentored and inspired Denzel Washington's character of Frank Lucas in American Gangster. Long before that film, the story of Bumpy Johnson was told in Hoodlum. This was one of those little told stories about the mafia that started out very strong. Unfortunately, I felt that the writers went into far too much detail at certain points in the film and by the end it was definitely dragging on. Laurence Fishburne stars as Johnson and did an adequate job, my problem with his has always been he lacks emotion in his acting. In my humble opinion this should automatically disqualify him from certain things and this probably should have been one of those things. Tim Roth is Dutch Schultz and while Schultz had a reputation for being a character, Roth went a little over the top with it, but was still very entertaining. My favorite performance was of course the one by Andy Garcia as Lucky Luciano, but he really wasn't in the film much and that's a shame, because nobody plays a crime boss better than hen does. Hoodlum is a wild ride about an incredible true story, but as a film, it was a mix of terrific scenes and some slower unnecessary elements. As a film it's not the best, but it's worth watching just for the amazing story that is being told.

david-sarkies 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.

shadowman123 Hoodlum is the story black a black underclass gangster who stands toe-to-toe with the Italian and Jewish Mafia in Harlem during 1930's in the great depression era. I checked out the story from watching the movie on Sunday and what I can say that yes there were several factual occurrences that took place during that time, however Hoodlum ends up turning its-self into some sort action flick rather than a factual account of what really happened, having said that it is still a very entertaining movie to watch and has some good performances as well as well made action scenes. Laurence Fishburne was excellent as the charming, and wise Bumpy Johnson who shows us an educated black man not afraid to stand up for what he believes in, Tim Roth was excellent as the unstable Ducth Schultz although I found my-self comparing him to Joe Pesci at times , and Andy Garcia as Lucy Lucoina was good with his screen time however I felt the stand out performance was Cicley Tyson who portrayed a very strong, elegant , proud Black woman. The movie rolled on fast and got into the swing straight away , there was good use of make-up , wardrobe and scenery which gave us a feel of 1930's Harlem. The interaction between characters is good as it gives us a real feel of what life was like back then. However the problems with Hoodlum are that the script seems a little superficial and characters which can have real depth to them normal end up being well quite flat. The film was supposed to be about real life events but it just seems to way to far fetched to the point where it does feel like a no brain action movie and the action it-self seems to be tit-for-tat repetitive although Fishburane's performance keeps you guessing how will he strike back and thusly the second half of the movie just feels messy and rushed. To conclude Hoodlum is probably not one of the best gangster movies about the black era to come I mean it is over shadowed by the likes of American Gangster but it does however manage to entertain on a big scale and is not a waste of time , its just a shame with a few clear faults in it however I would recommend as a rental and worth a check out for fans of the gangster genre.HOODLUM : 8.1 OUT OF 10POWER IS MEASURED IN ENEMIES...

idcook 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.