Critic Reviews

As interesting, certainly, as “American Gangster,” and operating with a truer street sense of the characters involved.

If Barnes ultimately emerges as a heartless, duplicitous villain, he's nevertheless got the devil's slippery, seductive charm.

What emerges is a portrait of a complex man - one who had no qualms about murder and drugs but who won a national poetry contest and read "Moby-Dick" while in jail. Go figure.

It's not a pretty picture, but it sure is a compelling one.

The "black Godfather" comes off as a cold-blooded narcissist whose vision of the American Dream is as twisted as it seems to have been rewarding.

A fascinating first-person account of drug kingpin and ruthless gangster Nicky Barnes, whose outrageous story of rise, rule, rage, and revenge requires no such stylistic filler.

It's fast and furious, and it proves that crime doesn't pay, unless you know how to do it right.

A slick package all around. Adroitly edited, filled with fine music like Curtis Mayfield's "Pusherman" and more people flashing needles than at a garment worker's convention, this film is less a dispassionate examination than a celebratory infomercial on its central character.

It's undeniably fascinating, but you might want to take a shower after hanging out with this unsavory bunch.

Barnes, now in his seventies and relocated by the Witness Protection Program, is shot only in silhouette, but there's plenty of footage of him in his heyday, dressed to the pimpalicious nines and playing to the cameras like a movie star.