Hoodlum is a 1997 American crime drama film that gives a fictionalized account of the gang war between the Italian/Jewish mafia alliance and the black gangsters of Harlem that took place in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

The film concentrates on Ellsworth "Bumpy" Johnson (Laurence Fishburne), Dutch Schultz (Tim Roth), and Lucky Luciano (Andy García).

Schultz begrudgingly reports to Mafia boss Charles "Lucky" Luciano, who pays bribes to special prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey to protect his business.

Reuniting with his cousin "Illinois" Gordon, Bumpy returns to the employ of Harlem crime boss Madame Queen, whose business is threatened by Schultz.

Madame Queen is attacked by Schultz’s men, led by black enforcer Bub Hewlett, but Bumpy and fellow mobster Whispers repel the assassins and rescue her.

Schultz then hires two hitmen, the Salke brothers, to kill Bumpy, and has his police contact, NYPD Captain Foley, arrange for Madame Queen's arrest.

After finding Illinois’ corpse left as a message, Bumpy slits Foley’s throat while he's with a black prostitute, but spares Hewlett’s life and offers him a partnership.

With Dutch eliminated and the gang war settled, Dewey – having received an enormous bribe from Bumpy, delivered by Hewlett – warns Luciano to stay away from Harlem.

[4] Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade B on scale of A to F.[5] Critic Roger Ebert noted that "the film is being marketed as a violent action picture, and in a sense, it is" and that director Bill Duke having made "a historical drama as much as a thriller, and his characters reflect a time when Harlem seemed poised on the brink of better things, and the despair of the postwar years was not easily seen on its prosperous streets.