Purple Gang, The

Pay now. Or pay with your life. Armed and arrogant, a baby-faced teen named Honeyboy Willard terrorizes hardened rumrunners until they agree to shell out protection money. Soon Honeyboy and his underage thugs, the Purple Gang, control Detroit, turning the screws until local businessmen, driven to desperation, call in the Chicago Mafia to outmuscle their homegrown mob. Disarmingly boyish, Robert Blake (In Cold Blood) makes a chilling Honeyboy, a psychopath equally thrilled by luring a cop to his death or cramming his best pal alive in a coffin, pouring in cement, and dropping him in the river. "That's the way we work," Honeyboy says. Bet on it.

• crime
• drama