An 'Empire' of offenses

[Photo: Universal] John Leguizamo, left, plays a Latino drug kingpin who starts a heroin business with a little help from his friends, including Vincent Laresca, right.

There's something to turn off everyone in director Franc Reyes' first movie, a bad knockoff of good crime films.

By PHILIP BOOTH, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published December 5, 2002

What's most offensive about Empire, debut director Franc Reyes' melodramatic tale of the violent rise and fall of a drug kingpin played by John Leguizamo?

Perhaps it's the former choreographer's assumption that young Latino audiences will automatically gravitate to fare that's relentlessly profane, sprinkled with gratuitous sex and spiked with closeup shots of bullets to the cranium.

The stereotyping is fairly ugly, too, with the filmmakers presenting people of Caribbean and African descent as motivated by little more than a lust for cash, preferably obtained illegally. And the women come in only three varieties: needy, predatory and promiscuous. Throw in some montuno rhythms, shots of conga players and references to Latin food, and pass off the whole thing as a serious-minded examination of a culture. That's the kind of thinking here.

Or perhaps it's the white liberal guilt. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it's oddly misplaced, with a wealthy young Manhattan businessman, Jack (Peter Sarsgaard), as WASPy and self-assured as anyone out of a Whit Stillman movie, turning in a series of speeches equating drugs and prostitution with legitimate business pursuits. The swaggering Victor Rosa (Leguizamo) calls himself, via voice-over, "young, Latin and good-looking," and imagines that he's the South Bronx equivalent of Carnegie, Rockefeller or even Bill Gates.

Last but not least among the offenses of Empire is its length: at 90 minutes, it feels like two hours.

At the beginning of his bloody rule, Victor consolidates power with the greatest of ease. He runs a business devoted to producing and distributing heroin with the help of boyhood friend Jimmy (Vincent Laresca of K-PAX) and other neighborhood pals.

The self-styled entrepreneur soon discovers a potential escape from the drug business, with the advice and encouragement of Jack, a sharp-witted Wall Street investment banker. Jack is dating money-hungry Trish (Denise Richards of Wild Things, doing her evil vixen bit again), a college friend of Victor's girlfriend, Carmen (Delilah Cotto of Girl 6).

The drug lord will be able to collaborate on an investment scheme only if he gets a loan from crime boss Joanna Menendez (Isabella Rossellini), and she wants a 500 percent return on her investment.

Victor's rise, decadent reign, foolish miscalculations and tortured decline are reminiscent of more accomplished crime films, including Blow, Goodfellas and Scarface.

Reyes' film, despite a good cast that also includes Sonia Braga and Ruben Blades, is a forgettable knockoff with a suspect agenda.

Empire

• Grade: C-
• Director: Franc Reyes
• Cast: John Leguizamo, Delilah Cotto, Peter Sarsgaard, Denise Richards, Nestor Serrano, Anthony "Treach" Criss, Fat Joe, Sonia Braga, Isabella Rossellini
• Screenplay: Franc Reyes
• Rating: R; graphic violence, nudity, sexual content, pervasive profanity, drug content
• Running time: 90 min.

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