30 Second Bottom Line: HEY, haven't seen this in awhile…a guy who goes from nothing to something by selling drugs & oops…something goes wrong! Can you smell the cynicism in the air?
Story Line: John Leguizamo is Vic, a VERY successful, organized, aggressive drug dealer on the rough streets of the South Bronx. Vic credits his success & knowledge of the game to his late older brother, whose gold "G" Vic wears around his neck at all times. He has the respect, the loyal crew, beautiful girlfriend & the money. You would think he had it all. But when his girlfriend Carmen announces that she is pregnant, thoughts of going legit run through Vic's mind.
Worlds collide when Vic meets Jack, a big time Wall Street tycoon and the boyfriend of Carmen's friend. Jack informs Vic that as a matter of fact selling drugs isn't any different than what a Fortune 500 CEO does to amass wealth. The two of them go into business together to take money to make money. As the money rolls in Vic goes through changes, & not for the better. He looses his closeness with his crew and gets the trite line, "You don't even know who you are anymore" run off to his face. For a while he doesn't wear his late brother's gold chain.
Down the line Jack throws a huge screwball at Vic by taking over a million dollars from him (of course, not all of it was Vic's to begin with) & he attempts to disappear. From this point on the movie pretty much goes into autopilot. Vic gets pissed & is hell bent for revenge. He's in deep water with his Colombian connection, which fronted him some of the money that Jack stole…blah, blah, blah.
Tell Me More About It: Personally, I have no problem with movies that are similar to others of the same genre but work the formula well. However similar & same are two totally different things. This movie attempts to be similar to the more appealing gangster films where the drug dealer does good things so we feel sorry for him when things go wrong (because they always do). But instead this movie is too much the same as "New Jack City," just from the perspective of a drug dealer, not the cop, trying to bring down another drug dealer. At least when you see it from the cop's perspective, you might have a surprise or two. But what happens to every drug dealer in movies? They either end up dead or in jail. The performances here are good & Leguizamo delivers like always, but this movie is by the numbers & you see it all coming a mile away.
R - for strong violence, pervasive language, drug content and some sexuality
Soundtrack