GRADE: B

In the late 1960s, American film finally broke loose of its Hollywood moorings to enter an unprecedented period of cinematic realism. Having shed those restraints, many films from this period, and much of the 1970s, featured more realistic (and often coarse) dialogue, natural lighting and sound, and on-location shooting.

Those qualities are in abundance in "Across 110th Street," a strong-willed, action-oriented drama that's both brutal and unforgiving in ways that would qualify it as a time-capsule of the 1970s, offering up a unique mix of urban challenges and racial division through the story of three black men who rob one of the Mafia's money drops in Harlem.

The heist goes bad, and the black gangsters and their white couriers, who were in the process of exchanging the money, are killed. This unexpected development results in the formation of an uneasy alliance between the traditional Mafia and its black counterparts, who decide to band together in order to hunt down the thieves, avenge the killings and retrieve the stolen money.

The bloodbath also has political implications, leading to the choice of an African-American police lieutenant (Yaphet Kotto) to lead the investigation over the more experienced precinct captain (Anthony Quinn). Their pairing may lead some viewers to assume the film will thereafter follow the basic dictates of the mismatched partners scenario, wherein two people start out disliking one another, but eventually become real buddies. Thankfully it doesn't; just one of several refreshing aspects to this raw and gritty piece of social commentary cum cop film.

Most of the action takes place in and around Harlem, where the presence of a "super-fly" quality in those depicted will strike some as parody rather than dating. But the loud, flamboyant clothing and growing sense of empowerment and pride evident in the African-American characters will be all too familiars to those who lived through the era; a historically accurate quality more so than an artistic exaggeration intended for effect.

At times "Across 110th Street" has a low budget, independent feature feel to it, but this actually adds to the film's sense of realism more often than it detracts. The story, too, has some moments of truth, and there are plenty of unexpected developments punctuating the extremely violent action.

The players acquit themselves well and director Barry Shear ("Wild in the Streets), whose work has been mostly in stewarding various episodes for television shows such as "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." and "Ironside," moves things along, if a bit awkwardly on occasion. When the smoke clears, what's left is certainly not one of the decade's best films, but one well worth watching that successfully extends itself beyond the confines of the traditional police procedural.