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Well there is the Empire State, the Empire State Building, Empire Blue Cross, well are you seeing a theme here? Yes, New York and the Empire in this Franc Reyes directed film is the choice drug sold in the South Bronx, but since the drug business is just that, a business, the link to it being an empire could work too. John Leguizamo (Ice Age) is Vic Rosa, a Puerto Rican drug dealer from the South Bronx and this is his story. This is his story because he narrates the entire film. We learn who the big boss is and it is a woman, Joanna Menenedez (Isabella Rossellini). The Bronx is split into different areas and run by different dealers who get their drugs from the same lady. They each cut the drug differently and name it and sell it in their own territory. Vic’s drug is Empire and his isn’t the purest, but it isn’t the lowest grade either. After Vic educates us on this side of the drug business he shows us the neighborhood, and the tiny apartment he lives in. He makes hundreds of thousands of dollars a month yet lives in squalor, oh but he drives a big SUV and wears a solid gold G around his neck. Then there is his girlfriend Carmen (Delilah Cotto), she is smart, pretty and loves him. So he buys her this fabulous necklace which she wears all the time. She even shows her girlfriend from school Trish (Denise Richards, Wild Things) the jewels. Trish invites her girlfriend to a broker party in Manhattan to meet her boyfriend Jack (Peter Sarsgaard, K-19 The Widowmaker). Carmen drags a very reluctant Vic to this party, but once in the penthouse and Vic gets a glimpse of real wealthy living, he wants a piece of it. The remainder of the story is a downward spiral taken when greed takes over and living high comes with a price. This story is about as predictable as they come. There is nothing shocking and nothing new revealed by the story. What makes the movie worth seeing is that the acting is above par. All characters are convincing in their roles, which is the purpose of making a story come to life in the first place. My only beef with the narration is this is Vic’s story, and since he wasn’t involved in the lives of the other drug dealers he would not know what took place inside their homes, so that part of the story would have been irrelevant. Also in this movie were Sonia Braga, Sam Coppola, Vincent Laresea, Omar Patran, Nestor Simmons, and Fat Joe. I actually enjoyed Empire even though it felt like I had seen this story a 100 different times before. So I rated this a seven on the About-Movies.com scale. Adios.
Last updated: Thursday, March 20, 2008 02:48:26 AM Click Here to get back into frames.
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