Sugar Hill

The ruins of Sugar Hill, a handsome Harlem neighborhood that once embodied the pinnacle of urban African-American achievement, is the setting for a story of fraternal rivalry in the drug trade. Intended as more than a simple genre flick, SUGAR HILL aspires to something like classical tragedy, but it's weighed down by its sense of self-importance.

Roemello (Wesley Snipes) and his older brother Raynathan (Michael Wright) have been scarred by their family's association with drugs. Their mother died of an overdose in front of her children's horrified eyes (in fact, Raynathan helped her shoot up the fatal hit), and their father A.R. (Clarence Williams III), a jazz...