Simply A Masterpiece

Purely Joyful Movie!

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

Wesley Snipes got two of his most important roles in 1991. In Spike Lee's "Jungle Fever" he played a man in a relationship with a white woman, causing strife in both communities. In Mario Van Peebles's "New Jack City", he played a drug lord. The movie sort of plays with the audience: on the one hand we know that crack devastated the black community (and the authorities used it as an excuse to imprison large numbers of black men, leaving two generations of black youth fatherless). But at the same time, the movie makes you root for Snipes's ruthless Nino as he rises to power. It's sort of like "The Godfather" in that sense.A message at the end of the movie notes that the drug epidemic will continue unless we see action instead of empty slogans. Only in the past few years have we started to see states dial down the so-called War on Drugs, and some have even legalized recreational marijuana. It's only now, after we've seen entire neighborhoods ruined and countries destabilized, that we've started taking a common-sense approach.Anyway, it's not a masterpiece, but still worth seeing. The rest of the cast includes Van Peebles, Ice-T, Judd Nelson, Chris Rock, Vanessa Williams and Bill Cobbs.

Nino Brown, a small time drug dealer, is convinced by one of his fellow thugs that the wave of the future is in the cocaine derivative, crack. Brown sees potential in crack and sets out to establish himself as chief kingpin by killing off his rivals and even going as far as to take over a whole apartment complex. Out to stop him are undercover cops Scottie Appleton and Nick Paretti. Appleton especially wants to get Nino because of the fact that he may have murdered his mother as part of a gang initiation. Also involved is Pookie, a former crack head who wants to bring down Nino as well......This film is ground breaking for one simple reason, it opened the door for gangster rappers/hip hop stars to become lucrative. So if it wasn't for this movie, Trespass, Juice, Above The Rim, and Menace II Society, probably wouldn't exist.It also shows that Snipes wasn't always an action star. Before Passenger 57 came to fruition, he was a scary screen presence, as this proves.But just as Scarface has been misunderstood (seen here ironically), the film doesn't show how powerful Drug Lords are, it clearly shows how greedy, how selfish, and how lonely they become, the more money they have.After all, when is enough enough?Peebles is an adequate director, but he does sometimes ask the audience to swallow some huge coincidences, and the police are not very well fleshed out, so the focus is on Brown and the Cash Money crew, so thank goodness that they are so entertaining.Rock shows up as the addict, and may as well be wearing a t-shirt saying 'this is what drugs will do to you' as he's only there as a metaphor for addiction.But all in all, it's a very watchable, very early nineties, piece of exploitation.

This movie made no sense it was all over the place. I know it's an older movie which is why I'm giving it some leeway here but all in all it still made cops look like idiots and dumb crooks look like geniuses. There were many times they could have arrested Nino or at least had his drug empire crumble around him. Entertaining but made no sense. There were some good performances by Chris Rock as a junkie and then redeeming himself as an informant, this movie would have been a lot better had they kept Pookie alive and had this movie a bit more of of a road to redemption for him. In the end though while this movie has some entertaining values in the end it just failed to meet expectations.

When New Jack City was released I was fascinated by the characters and mesmerised by its power – I was also 17.Now almost 20 years on I see some of the flaws and broad strokes used that detract a little from the effectiveness of the film, but it is still a pretty solid genre piece with a standout performance from Wesley Snipes in what turned out to be a career defining role.A great opening sequence introduces us to Nino Brown on the job. It is 1986 and while Nino is already large he is not yet LAAAAAARRRRRGE! As he will be a little later on… Nino is the personification of hip-hop cool, he wears clothes that might be described as "fly", rocks several ostentatious gold chains and items of jewelry and almost always wears the obligatory early 90s Kangol hat. He also has a slick tongue and an ear for a quotable line.Nino's is practically posse-less at this early stage but his right hand man Gee Money (Allen Payne) is already in place. On this day Gee Money brings something new to the conversation, a new drug named Crack that is apparently already creating a buzz in urban areas.Nino devises a plan that sees the newly formed gang the CMB (Cash Money Brothers) take over an entire apartment building called the Carter in a low income area, using force where necessary. Once under their control they convert the whole building into a home base to run a high tech, organised drug selling premises, complete with employee uniforms and membership cards! The Carter rapidly becomes the hub of operations and a well known no-go zone in the local area… unless you're looking to score.Fast forward three years to 1989 and crack rules, this time Nino is indeed LAAAAAARRRRRGE, and the CMB are runnin' thangs in a big way, but he has even greater aspirations.Nino's escalation of operations sees himself get noticed by the Mafia who aren't too ecstatic with their decreasing market share, and the cops, who decide to take action… after only three years! A taskforce is built to take down the CMB – not much of a task force but a task force nonetheless. It is comprised of 4 guys and only three merit description aside from "the Asian guy who hardly talks". These three are leader Detective Stone (Mario Van Peebles), maverick black cop Scotty Appleton (Ice T) and maverick white cop Nick Peretti (Judd Nelson).These three spend most of each day debating race and drugs, without ever seeming to think "Gee maybe if we take down the apartment building drug complex that might do some good".As the cops escalate things by getting a reformed crack addict named Pookie (Chris Rock) to infiltrate the Carter and report back, tensions increase between power hungry Nino and former best bud Gee Money. It doesn't help things when a gold digging hoochie named Uniqua (I wish I made that up!) gets involved and strings both of them along by their zippers.I'll leave the action there aside from mentioning that when an initial police operation fails things move quickly from there until the end, leading to some pretty ludicrous events.New Jack City is quotable at times, but just as cringe worthy at others with some of the attempts at catchy lines falling very flat. The dialogue between cops is often most lamentable of all, which seems strange as Mevin Van Peebles plays lead detective Stone, and he directed the thing! In 1991 I had no idea just how broadly stereotyped the characters were, all Nino seems to do is play basketball and watch Scarface, and the less said about the Italian Mafia the better.New Jack City hasn't dated like the flat top haircuts and formation dancing that both appear in the film, but certain scenes pop and Wesley Snipes puts in an over the top performance as the insanely confident and driven Nino Brown that serves as the centrepiece of the film.Final Rating – 7.5 / 10. For a couple years I thought New Jack City was the best film ever… It isn't. But while it hasn't aged well it is still a solid pic with some memorable scenes and a great bad guy.