CONTAIN SPOILERS Three poor little Harlem guys try to become some big men by stealing some dirty money. The three are touching : Henry J. Jackson (Antonio Fargas) is the goofy guy who can not do anything else than spending lots of bucks in a flashy way, Joe Logart (Ed Bernard) try to escape in a goofy way, Jim Harris (Paul Benjamin) struggles with epilepsy, dreams of a cool life in Jamaica with his beautiful woman, throw bullets on adults and bucks on children. Two cops are trying to find them : the old white Capt. Mattelli (Anthony Quinn) and the young black Lt. Pope (Yaphet Kotto). The old one uses violence, accepts dirty money from the Black mob, drinks alcohol, begins to be fed up with his job. The young one uses speech, refuses dirty money, does not drink alcohol, begins to think it would be better that he take the old one's chair. But two mobs are trying to find the three poor guys too : the Black mob and the Italian mob, each of them full of great villains. Wonderful photography, powerful soundtrack, awesome actors (except Anthony Franciosa who overplays a little in my opinion), a violence as strong as in Martin Scorcese's Casino, a movie that dissuade to do bad things without using common preach. Rough and tough, as Michael Mann's Thief.