Mr. Untouchable is a documentary about 1970s’ Harlem heroin king Nicky Barnes. Now in witness protection, the aged Barnes spends a lot of time in front of the camera, his features shadowed and the focus on his hands as he plays with props like champagne, wads of cash and a single dramatic bullet. Aided by a variety of talking heads from both sides of the law, he tells the tale of a kingpin’s rise and fall familiar from all those Scorsese movies, only true. Barnes gained the Untouchable nickname after his skilful lawyer improbably kept him out of jail despite several arrests. Said lawyer appears here, still glorying in his achievements and so amoral it’s amusing – until you think about it for a moment and realise this is why people call lawyers sharks and why that’s an insult to an honest predator. The soundtrack is funky and has all the obvious Superfly/Pusherman anthems, but the presentation is nothing special. Slow pans over the same photographs aren’t very slick, but the story is gripping enough to get by without slickness. The film alternately condemns and romanticises the lifestyle it depicts. Barnes and his gang, The Council, gave turkeys to the poor every Thanksgiving and looked badass in their red hats and bellbottoms while swearing oaths of brotherhood, but they also flooded their own community with junkies and pre-emptively murdered people suspected of being informants just to send a message. Alarmingly, the only thing Barnes did that really seems to upset people is ratting on his former partners after his eventual arrest. Snitching is a sin, but everything else was just living the American Dream.

***½

JODY MACGREGOR

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