Walking into the latest Wesley Snipes vehicle Sugar Hill, one would probably expect the quick thrills and needless violence that populated the star's last two films -- Rising Sun and Demolition Man.

What a welcome surprise it is then that Sugar Hill is not New Jack City 2 but a deep, moving account of a Harlem gangster looking to get out of the violent world he has prospered in.

True, the storyline has been used before, most recently in Brian DePalma's Carlito's Way and The Godfather Part III. But in placing this clichd plot in the black community, the writers of Sugar Hill have tapped into a film that is as intriguing as it is socially relevant.

Snipes stars as a Harlem gangster trying to escape the world of drugs that has surrounded him since he was a child. In some stirring flashbacks, we see the youngster watching in horror as his mother dies of a heroin overdose and as his father is almost beaten to death by the local mob boss. Snipes is a product of his environment, slowly trying to escape.

But a number of obstacles stand in his way. His brother is a loose cannon bent on taking down the Italian mob boss they work under, while a neighborhood girl who has an eye for Snipes cannot bring herself to love him due to his past.

With all of those problems surrounding him, Snipes remains determined to get out. With his quiet demeanor and intensity, Snipes presents us with a gangster who uses brains over brawn. It is truly the often-underrated actor's best performance.

Other fine performances are provided by Abe Vigoda as the aged crime boss and Clarence Williams III as Snipes' strung-out dad. The dinner scene between the father and his two sons is one of the most heartbreaking scenes in recent memory.

The key question raised in the film is if Snipes gets out of his line of work, where will he go as as a black man in a white world? The unexpected social relevance raised in the film makes it a cut above other recent gangster films.

What makes Sugar Hill such an important film, however, is its look at the community that surrounds the gangsters. Rarely has Hollywood delivered a film involving black gangsters that didn't reduce them to evil stereotypes pursued by white cops. Like last year's Menace II Society, Sugar Hill provides us with a protagonist who is troubled, confused and very human.