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Generally favorable reviews - based on 13 Critics What's this?

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  • Summary: Mr. Touchable is the true-life story of Harlem's notorious Nicky Barnes, a junkie turned multimillionaire drug lord, which takes its audience deep inside the heroin industry of the 1970s. The most powerful black drug kingpin in New York City history, Barnes came from humble beginnings to make himself and his comrades rich beyond their wildest dreams, ultimately reaching national infamy in 1977 when the New York Times put him on the front cover of its magazine with the headline "Mr. Untouchable." Soon after, it all came crumbling down, and facing a life sentence without parole, Barnes started naming names. With the firsthand testimony from "the black Godfather" himself, this documentary tells an epic story of business, excess, greed, and revenge. (Magnolia) Expand
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 10 out of 13
  2. Negative: 0 out of 13
  1. It's not a pretty picture, but it sure is a compelling one.
  2. As interesting, certainly, as “American Gangster,” and operating with a truer street sense of the characters involved.
  3. 75
    What emerges is a portrait of a complex man - one who had no qualms about murder and drugs but who won a national poetry contest and read "Moby-Dick" while in jail. Go figure.
  4. 60
    There is some acknowledgment of the terrible effects of the drug trade on residents of Harlem and other poor New York neighborhoods, but for the most part Mr. Untouchable clings to the standard hip-hop mythology of the pusher as entrepreneur, rebel, celebrity and folk hero.

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