Empire [HD]

Dig beneath the surface
The plot: Successful South Bronx drug dealer Vic (John Leguizamo), hooked up solid w/ a co-ed neighbor Carmen (Delilah Cotto), is looking to move up to the next level in business. At a party, Vic meets Jack, the whitebread stockbroker boyfriend (Peter Skarsgard) of Carmen's college buddy (Denise Richards). Vic envies Jack's class, connections, and bling bling. Vic and Jack do business, Jack cheats Vic, then fades. Vic vows revenge. Leguizamo has charisma to burn as Vic. Cotto wears Carmen like a favorite dress. Skarsgard is pefectly white as, well, whitey. Pretty formulaic.

So, why did I give it five stars? The deleted scenes.

If you follow the entertainment news even casually, you've read a million stories about great movies that turned into vile theatrical releases because the fickle test audience and/or egomanical studio head/director/star demanded cuts that transformed cinema gold into more film for the recycling bin. That's what's happened with Empire, but...

Interesting Movie With An Original Twist
I like to compare movies and characters from similar genres. Victor Rosa is a tough hood who in the end plays out a losing hand. While Rosa is less ruthless than Nino Brown (New Jack City) and smarter than Tony Montana (Scarface) in not using his own supply of drugs, he is still not as savvy as Carlito (Carlito's Way, Carlito: Rise To Power). Carlito would never have been taken the way Victor Rosa was, and would have had connections to deal with anyone foolish enough to have dared to screw him over--no matter where the hapless fool flew to.

I loved the setting of the movie. Indeed, when I viewed it and saw the Twin Towers from a Manhattan park I had to look at Leonard Maltin's Movie Review to see when the movie was made. It looks so contemorary that I was surprised to find t had been made 10 years ago. It still looks fresh and contemporary to me.

While Leonard Maltin gave this movie only Two Stars, it is at least a Three And A Half Star Movie and I rounded it up...

The bigger the empire, the harder the fall...
I had high expectation for `Empire'. That is probably where I went wrong. As far as a drug fueled gangster story, this does have its high points, but overall it misses a lot of marks and comes up short too many times for me. It wants to be something more than it is capable of becoming. I take that back. It wants to be something more than it actually is, which is sad because it was capable of becoming all that it wanted to be.

Make sense?

The film tells the story of hustler Victor Rosa who makes a decent living being fairly indecent. In an attempt to solidify his safety (and procure a nice future), Victor tries his hand at more complex games only to eventually be taken for everything.

Not good.

With a cast that includes some pretty heavy hitters (Sarsgaard, Rossellini), some beautiful faces (Braga, Richards) and some charismatic talent (Leguizamo), this really should have been a slam dunk. Sadly, it fails on two opposite ends of the...

Click to Editorial Reviews