Director Mario Van Peebles's debut feature is far from original, but Wesley Snipes' charismatic performance, its nonstop action, rocketing pace, and anti-drug message all contribute to the impact of this well-executed genre film. A fusion of Scarface (1932), Public Enemy (1931), The Godfather (1972), and a dozen other gangster rise-and-fall sagas, it's both a glamorous chronicle of the swiftly burgeoning power of crack in the New York of the 1980s and a scathing cautionary tale. "Ya gotta rob to get rich in the Reagan era," Snipes' drug kingpin informs his loyal troops, and like Coppola's masterpiece, the film links crime with business as the hard-working capitalists ply their trade. As the drug gang turns an abandoned Harlem building into their personal fortress, the film recalls the ease with which the crack lords once dominated entire areas of New York. Snipes, arrogant, narcisstic, methodical, ruthless, and magnetic in his evil, has rarely been better. Ice-T and Judd_Nelson make a strange pair of narcotics detectives, but here, they rise to the occasion. Michael Costello, Rovi

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