        Ŀ
           SUGAR HILL:  Leon Ichaso, director.  Barry Michael      
           Cooper, screenplay.  Starring Wesley Snipes, Michael    
           Wright, Theresa Randle, Clarence Williams III, Abe      
           Vigoda, Ernie Hudson, Leslie Uggams, Larry Joshua,      
           Steve J. Harris, and Khandi Alexander.  Twentieth       
           Century Fox.  Rated R.                                  
        

          Roemello Skuggs is a Harlem drug dealer tied by "time, fear,
     and greed," to the people who tore his family apart in SUGAR HILL,
     from director Leon Ichaso and NEW JACK CITY screenwriter, Barry
     Michael Cooper.  Wesley Snipes returns to fine form in this film,
     especially after the near-awful PASSENGER 57, BOILING POINT,
     RISING SUN, and the fun-but-fair DEMOLITION MAN.  He fills a role
     that he does all too well and practically no one else can touch.
     Though Roemello is nowhere near as vicious as the drug lord he
     played in NEW JACK CITY, Snipes carries him with the same inten-
     sity, and gives him the same ruthlessness when the situation
     dictates.  In essence, it's almost the same character, but now he
     has a conscience.  Roemy has a stronger feeling of being trapped
     by his situation, though, and desperately wants out.  Bad.  And
     if he's not careful, that's the way he's gonna go.  Roemy's
     partner, Gus Molino (Abe Vigoda, and it's great to see him back
     on screen), wants to carve out part of Roemello's turf for a new
     talent, Lolly (Ernie Hudson), a prizefighter turned street-
     hustler.  Lolly doesn't want to be a silent partner, if you know
     what I mean, and I know you do.

          Roemy's had it.  He can't get his mother's death from bad
     heroin out of his mind.  His father screwed up his own life by
     losing Gus' drug money.  Clarence Williams III plays the senior
     Skuggs, and damn if it isn't great to see him back, too.  Add to
     these troubles an unstable older brother (Michael Wright, in
     arguably the film's strongest performance, behind Snipes and
     Williams) who wants a piece of Roemy's territory for himself, and
     can you blame him for wanting out?  Would you stay?

          The portrait of the modern-day gangster set against the
     decay of Harlem is finely drawn; Roemy himself wants to escape
     the very decline that drugs have wrought on his neighborhood, the
     decline that he's helped to cause.  Feeding his need for escape is
     his new-found love for a young actress, Melissa (Theresa Randle).
     Scenes between Snipes and Vigoda almost play like old-time
     gangster pictures, with everything old being made new again.
     Even Lolly's connection to prizefighting and meetings held in his
     gym evoke the classic cops-n-robbers pictures of the '40s.  If I
     have to fault SUGAR HILL on something, it's the lack of visible
     law-enforcement figures.  It's too easy for today's audiences to
     identify with gangbangers.  At one point, after Lolly has hit a
     member of Roemy's gang (that's something else that's great about
     this picture, the revival of classic gangster words like "hit"
     and "gat"), Raynathan pulls out a gun during a rooftop meeting
     and says, "This is the only number Lolly needs to understand:
     nine millimeters."  Some audience members shouted approval at
     Raynathan, which bothered me.  We've become so inured to
     violence, on the screen and in our streets, that even when a
     despicable bad guy pulls a gun, the audience cheers.  Of course,
     I felt that same thrill when Al Capone's mob pulled out their
     Tommy-guns in THE ST. VALENTINE'S DAY MASSACRE (1967), so maybe
     I'm just being an old grump here.

          Ichason creates a stylish look with the very first shots of
     SUGAR HILL:  archive photos of Harlem dissolving to '90s Harlem,
     then a shot of Snipes in bed, remembering his mother's death.
     It's all set to a sexy, smoky Terence Blanchard soundtrack, a
     wistful jazz score that sounds influenced by Bernard Herrmann's
     soundtrack for Martin Scorcese's TAXI DRIVER (1976).  As Roemy
     gets out of bed, the layout of his sumptuous-by-Harlem standards
     shows how trapped he is.  The camera shoots down the length of a
     very narrow hallway, and tracks Roemy as he walks to a mirror
     covering the hall's end.  He's trapped, all right, but he's the
     only one to blame for it.

          I was disappointed by several clichd elements (Roemy's
     drive to achieve, shown in flashback as a full scholarship to
     Georgetown University, despite his broken home life; taking his
     first step down the wrong path by acing the thug who shot his
     father; and a cop on the take who happens to be Gus' son.  Over-
     all, SUGAR HILL is a dramatic statement on the power of drugs and
     loyalty in '90s Harlem.

     RATING:  $$$
