New Jack City *** (1991, Wesley Snipes, Ice-T, Mario Van Peebles, Judd Nelson, Allen Payne, Chris Rock, Bill Cobbs) – Classic Movie Review 11,367

Director Mario Van Peebles’s 1991 American independent film New Jack City stars the young and charismatic Wesley Snipes, who gives an impressive tough guy role performance as the arrogant, smart Nino Brown, a stereotypical New York City drug lord in a rather poorly written and scrappily directed action crime thriller. Based on an original story and screenplay by Thomas Lee Wright and Barry Michael Cooper, it is Van Peebles’s directorial debut, and he also plays Stone, the leader of the police operation.

We have had the Italian and Irish mob stories, so there is certainly room for an African American version of the Godfather saga, but this recalls some of the scrappier blaxploitation movies of the Seventies and lacks the quality and intelligence of the best classic gangster pictures. The references to James Cagney and George Raft, and to Al Pacino’s Scarface suggest that the film-makers were after a African American version of these vintage gangster role actors and movies, and, if so, New Jack City has fallen far short.

Ice-T also stars as detective Scotty Appleton, who vows to stop Nino’s criminal activities during the crack cocaine epidemic by going undercover to work for his gang.

Judd Nelson (as the Italian cop Nick Peretti) is one of a large, now iconic support cast who gives an especially unconvincing performance. New Jack City is violent and foul-mouthed, of course, as well as unattractive to look at, though it has raw energy and excitement to recommend it, along with its star, its storyline and its soundtrack.

Also in the cast are Vanessa A Williams as Nino Brown’s feisty gun moll Keisha, Allen Payne, Chris Rock, Mario Van Peebles, Michael Michele, Judd Nelson, Bill Nunn, Bill Cobbs, Russell Wong, Christopher Williams, Tracy Camilla Johns, Anthony DeSando, Nick Ashford, Keith Sweat, and Flavor Flav.

It was filmed in New York City between April 16 and June 6, 1990.

It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 17, 1991, before being released in the US on March 8, 1991. Made for $8,000,000 budget, it became the highest-grossing independent film of 1991, taking $47,624,253 in the US.

Thomas Lee Wright’s screenplay was originally written as The Godfather: Part III and concerned heroin rather than cocaine. Barry Michael Cooper’s rewrite was adapted from his December 1987 The Village Voice cover story Kids Killing Kids: New Jack City Eats Its Young about the drug war in Detroit.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,367

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com