thumbs up for the movie not the man. Very compelling documentary about 70's era NYC heroin kingpin Nicky Barnes' rise and fall. Barnes bought drugs wholesale from the mafia and sold them on the streets of Harlem and elsewhere, making tens of millions a year. As we are often told, the drug business was a business, a corporation and barnes success was due to his business acumen (and unflinching use of brutal violence, but that was part of the business acumen). The ride began to end when the media gave him the nickname "Mr Untouchable". That really p**sed the cops off and from then it was only a matter of time before it all came crashing down.
That's the end of the first part of the story, but when Barnes is in jail he gets wind of disloyalty among his organization and still more drama ensues. If you are a New Yorker you likely know all of this and more but I'll refrain from giving away more than I perhaps already have. If you ever saw "New Jack City" the giving away the turkeys on thanksgiving and making the workers strip nude when cutting the drugs from was taken from Barnes. It's a typical documentary: interviews and photographs and news footage, there isn't any really any nudity or violence shown but if you are a fan of gangster movies and/ or blaxploitation you have to see this. It's a marked improvement over the directors previous film "Protocols of Zion" a vague, meandering sort-of investigation of post 9/11 antisemetism and conspiracy theories. This is much tighter, the 90 minutes fly by.
highly recommended
