Grade: D+

Verdict: Just a bombastic rip-off of every other drug dealer/gangster movie you've seen before.

Details: Starring John Leguizamo. Written and directed by Franc Reyes. Rated R for strong violence, pervasive language, drug content and some sexuality. 95 minutes.

Review: "Empire" could be a book on tape: It's essentially an extended voiceover by John Leguizamo, punctuated periodically by spurts of gunfire.

We never have to wonder what his character, South Bronx heroin dealer Victor Rosa, is thinking or feeling because he tells us in great detail.

His opinion of himself: "Young, Latino and good-looking."

His formative childhood experience: "I was always alone, always had to prove myself."

His business strategy: "I cut mine the least because I believe in purity."

His predicament toward the end: "I had nowhere to turn and no one to help me."

First-time writer-director Franc Reyes tries to present Victor's story as a cautionary tale--if you're already a millionaire drug dealer, don't get greedy!--but he doesn't try very hard.

Besides telling rather than showing, he populates "Empire" with trash-talking, pistol-packing Hispanic stereotypes. This is a surprise and a disappointment, considering the movie is the first from Arenas Entertainment, a branch of Universal Pictures that aims to tailor films to Hispanic audiences.

Victor is the most powerful drug dealer in his neighborhood, likening his entrepreneurial prowess to Rockefeller and Carnegie. But he wants to go legit, especially after his girlfriend, Carmen (Delilah Cotto, a lovely source of warmth), tells him she's pregnant.

He reluctantly attends an upscale party given by Trish (Denise Richards, also lovely but vapid as usual), a college friend of Carmen's, and strikes up a friendship with Trish's investment banker boyfriend, Jack (Peter Sarsgaard).

Victor and Jack realize they're not so different, despite their backgrounds and businesses. Jack provides some investment advice, and in no time Victor has doubled his money and moved with Carmen into a cavernous SoHo loft with closets full of Armani suits.

His homies back in the Bronx are none too thrilled with the changes they see in Victor.

"You'll be back--everything you are is in this neighborhood," one warns him in the obvious foreshadowing that's rampant in Reyes' script.

Victor's supplier, known as "La Colombiana," also isn't happy about his desire to go straight, and demands that he make some money for her on Wall Street first. As the stylish queenpin, Isabella Rossellini brings more weight and charisma to the role than the movie deserves.

Of course, none of this works out the way Victor planned. He betrays the people who trusted him, then is betrayed by the people he thought he could trust.

In the end, it's all just a bombastic rip-off of every other drug dealer/gangster movie you've seen before.

— Christy Lemire, The Associated Press