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www.boxoffice.com - : Filmmakers love gangsters, and none with more affection than those legendary Depression-era dukes of debauchery Lucky Luciano, Dutch Schultz, Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky. Unfortunately, such efforts as ''Bugsy,'' ''The Cotton Club,'' ''Mobsters'' and ''Billy Bathgate'' have so overexposed the characters and their milieu that separating truth from myth might well be a long-lost cause. All of that helps explain why the makers of ''Hoodlum'' chose to shift their focus onto Harlem's own Ellsworth ''Bumpy'' Johnson, a lesser-known, though no less instrumental, figure of the era. Although Laurence Fishburne's Johnson does indeed cut a compelling figure, overlong lackluster writing and uninspired direction relegate ''Hoodlum'' to the bottom rung of American gangster epics. more...
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Critic Reviews
