New Jack City (1991)

User Rating:

6.2/10   

Director:

Mario Van Peebles

Writers (WGA):

Thomas Lee Wright (story)
Thomas Lee Wright (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

8 March 1991 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Thriller

Tagline:

They're a new breed of gangster. The new public enemy. The new family of crime.

Plot:

A crime lord ascends to power and becomes megamanical while a maverick police detective vows to stop him.

Plot Keywords:

Gang | Drugs | Police | Crack Cocaine | Police Officer

Awards:

1 win & 3 nominations

Cast

Wesley Snipes	...	Nino Brown
Ice-T	...	Scotty Appleton (as Ice T)
Allen Payne	...	Gee Money
Chris Rock	...	Pookie
Mario Van Peebles	...	Stone
Michael Michele	...	Selina Thomas
Bill Nunn	...	Duh Duh Duh Man
Russell Wong	...	Park
Bill Cobbs	...	Old Man
Christopher Williams	...	Kareem Akbar
Judd Nelson	...	Nick Peretti
Vanessa Williams	...	Keisha
Tracy Camilla Johns	...	Uniqua
Anthony DeSando	...	Frankie Needles
Nick Ashford	...	Reverend Oates

Also Known As:

New Jack City (France) [fr]
New Jack City (Spain) [es]
New Jack City (Finland) [fi]
Novi grad zlocina (Serbia) [sr]

Runtime:

97 min | UK:101 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

Singapore:M18 | Iceland:16 | Australia:MA (cable rating) | Australia:R (original rating) | Canada:18A | Finland:K-18 | France:-12 | Germany:16 (cut) | Netherlands:16 | New Zealand:R18 | Spain:18 | Sweden:15 | UK:18 | USA:R | Norway:18 (video premiere) (1991) | Norway:(Banned) (1991-2003) (cinema release)

Filming Locations:

Grant's Tomb - 122th Street & Riverside Drive, Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA

Company:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Trivia:

The highest grossing independent feature of 1991.

Goofs:

Continuity: When Nino Brown kills the first cop in the second bust, we see he removes the cop's hat and puts it over the cop's face. When he killed Park, we can see that Brown is wearing the same cap.

Quotes:

Nino Brown: Am I my brother's keeper? Yes I am.

Movie Connections:

Spoofed in CB4 (1993)

Soundtrack:

FOR THE LOVE OF MONEY

Am I My Brother's Keeper...

This movie was a surprise. I remember Mario van Peeble's father's "Watermelon Man", an amusing comedy that turns anti-white about half-way through and winds up rather a racist tract. It's almost a convention in movies about African-Americans who seem destructive to themselves or others that they are turned on to dope by white guys. Or, if they retain their rectitude, it's the white guys that are at the head of the horde of local pushers. Of course white women flock to the heroes, etc. We've seen it hundreds of times. But this one is different. The majority of performers are African-Americans, both the cops and the bad guys, neither of them perfect in their goodness or their evil. The characters seem to choose their own destinies for a change. Wesley Snipes is not given a loving trophy blonde. There is a token white cop, Judd Nelson, who was my supporting player in "From the Hip," an extraordinarily good film itself, who is permitted to say, "It's not a black thing. It's not a white thing." Crack is the problem here, not race. We're all in this together, which, in these days, is a pretty progressive statement. It's strictly a genre film. There is craftsmanship in it, if no noticeable attempt at depth, but it's well and stylishly done too. Van Peebles knows how to place the camera and when to cut. The performances are excellent for a film of this type. Snipes especially is a fine physical actor. It winds up with the expected shootout in an empty warehouse or factory. I'd kind of put off seeing this on TV, afraid of wincing through the prejudices I anticipated being expressed, and I was pleasantly surprised to find them completely absent here.