Who are we to believe is the real drug lord of Harlem in the 1970’s? Ridley Scott’s presentation with Academy Award winning actor Denzel Washington portraying Frank Lucas in ‘American Gangster’ or documentary filmmaker Mark Levin who gets the words out of the mouth of the man himself Leon, ‘Nicky’ Barnes, in his engaging film ‘Mr. Untouchable’? I suppose it doesn’t really matter who you believe as both men dealt in the destruction of their own, and both apparently thought that giving out a turkey or two at Thanksgiving made it all good. Both men also proved that ‘Honor amongst Thieves’ are just words on a piece of paper somewhere in a library as there obviously is none. But as is usually the case, a good doc beats out a good movie almost any day of the week.

Levin’s Documentary has four principle characters in Barnes associates Joseph ‘Jazz’ Hayden, and Leon ‘Scrap’ Batts, his ex-wife and mother of his two children Thelma Grant with the main player being Barnes himself, often hiding behind a strong backlight or viewed with clever shots of his hands as his identity is being protected since he’s been in the Federal Witness Protection Program for the last decade or so. Barnes tells his story from being a dope addict and then spending some time in jail, or Criminal School as Jazz would call it, and from there figuring out a way to cut heroin to keep its potency yet increase the volume of the product. From that point on in the in the early 70’s the sky was the limit for Barnes. Surrounded by his council which also included four other trusted associates, these seven men set up and executed a streamlined but ruthless business model and where they were making more money moving heroin through Harlem than seems conceivably possible.

But one just can’t go around breaking the law and killing folks though as Levin also features interviews with the law enforcement officers who were attempting to derail Barnes’ empire. However Barnes lawyer, David Breitbart, Mighty Whitey as Barnes and his associates called him, practically steals the show in the couple of interviews he gives, manages to help Barnes beat quite a few of the serious cases against him which would eventually give him the title of ‘Mr. Untouchable’ and land him on the front cover of the New York Times magazine, a cover he would actually pose for, much to the unending pain of his associates. Eventually though, at no less the insistence of the sitting President of the United States of America, the feds would get their man – Life with no possibility of parole. But while in prison, convinced that he is being betrayed by those on the outside, Barnes turns on his crew, sets up a sting against his wife and brings down over 70 of his former his former associates, a good number of whom will never see daylight again while Mr. Untouchable, the gangster turned snitch, served 21 years and is out living on the governments dime – with a 1-million dollar bounty on his head.

Mark Levin does a really good job in presenting his story with his subjects, criminals and cops alike, all being very lively and passionate about the subject at hand. He cuts in archival footage of strung out junkies from the period doing what they do, actual footage of the nude package preparers all mated to some best R&B that that time had to offer. The best documentaries don’t offer opinions or try to manipulate the audience into believing one thing over another, yes I’m talking to you ‘documentary’ filmmaker Michael Moorer, but provides a balance of information the best that it can be presented and allows the viewer to draw their own conclusions. One could easily argue that giving the completely remorseless Nicky Barnes this kind of open forum glorifies his criminal activity and don’t think for moment that this small, intelligent, self-important delusional man harbors any regrets, but the more he talks the more it becomes increasingly clear that this cat is a bitter, angry, hateful evil man not worthy on anyone’s admiration.

Do I have any issues with this documentary? Not really, but there are issues to be had with the participants. Now I’m not a lawbreaker, though I’m not quite sure where a couple of those MP3’s on my Zune came from, but if I were a chronic lawbreaker I would still consider Nicky Barnes subhuman. When these other criminals, who are going garner no one’s pity, look upon Barnes with disgust, I understand their points. This is a man who turned in his wife because she ‘betrayed’ him by taking up with another man, ‘neglecting’ her responsibilities to him. This cat in the previous breath declared women ‘half his age’ as his weakness, wanted an associate murdered for ‘messing with the King’s woman’ – not his wife mind you and gave his mistress his name, which he didn’t even do for his wife. Delusional and small this dude. This is a man who chastised Frank Lucas, who he has negative respect for, because he doesn’t know on which side of his pants to place his penis. Come on Nicky. Then my man Jazz calls the city of New York’s pursuit of them Racism, and in a sense I think he’s right, but that doesn’t make him any less a criminal which almost all of these people seem to conveniently forget.

Nonetheless, Mr. Levin has crafted a very compelling and hard hitting film into the life of man, who for lack of a better word, is certainly a legend and is a little more than the petty buffoon he was portrayed to be in ‘American Gangster’.