It's a story about a convenience store clerk and his manager operating
a bodega in the Bronx, selling cartons of smokes under the table. But
somehow Lang makes it a rip-roaring hard-to-put-down noir tale about
despair and desperation and a band of crooks at each other's throats.
Take a Slovenian ex-con with no prospects, a tough-as-nails mean-
spirited take-no-crap woman with an itchy trigger finger, a glamorous
Irish-Cuban entrepreneur, a guy in a ski mask with a pistol, and and
an angry Eastern European Mafioso and you've got trouble with a
capital T.
This is a taste of modern noir that is just plain great. It's funny, tragic,
and tough not to finish. Really enjoyed it.
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