New Jack City

Of the big black urban crime dramas I think this one is my favorite.  Wesley Pipes (Rising Sun, White Men Can’t Jump) is Nino Brown and he’s the baddest drug lord in New York City, I mean New Jack City.  He’s got everyone hooked on crack including Chris Rock who gives a rare dramatic and effective performance as one of those addicts.  In order to stop Nino three rogue cops team up, Ice-T (Johnny Mnemonic, Surviving the Game), Judd Nelson (The Breakfast Club, St. Elmo’s Fire) and Mario Van Peebles (Jaws: The Revenge).  Ice-T and Judd Nelson go undercover to infiltrate Nino’s crack house operation which includes (and I shit you not) a room full of topless women preparing the drugs.  Things go wrong for both sides and shit gets complicated but in the end only one can prevail.  And of course you should see this to find out who does.       

Peebles also directs and man did he do a bang up job.  This film is shot incredibly well with sharp contrast between the criminal world and the non-criminal world and how crime affects everyone.  The cinematography is beautiful with overhead shots, dark colors for Nino’s mansion, lots of pale blue lighting for the crack scenes, plenty of really weird but really cool angles, there’s one part with an intense shoot out that has lots of awesome slo-mo shots and the opening scene is one of the most impressive and badass I’ve ever seen.  Let me set it up for you.  There’s a bunch of helicopter shots of New Jack fading into one another with the credits over them but then there’s one shot of a bridge.  You don’t think it’s anything special at first but it doesn’t cut away and you get closer and closer.  After a little bit we can see that there’s a guy dangling another guy off the side and the camera gets right up to the two.  It’s really one of the coolest shots I’ve ever seen and lets you know right off the bat the kind of ambitious movie you’re dealing with.

This picture is epic and covers a lot of ground in the just over ninety minutes running time.  I love it and I think it’s a must see for anyone who digs crime dramas and doubly recommended if you like hood movies.  This isn’t a hood movie per se but there are plenty of overlaps like drugs, gangs and the power struggle that exists over poor neighborhoods.  They took the best from both worlds and that’s why this one’s a classic.

The scene above takes place in Nino’s mansion where he confronts his associates about some shit that went wrong.  We’re all familiar with scenes like this from countless films but this one looks so damn good.  Everything is either black or a very dark shade of some other color.  It’s almost like we’re watching a black and white movie and the effect is really creepy.  The only bit of bright color are the orange flames coming from the fireplace which you can see flickering in the background every once in a while.  It feels like we’re in hell and Nino is our guide.  The scene escalates so quickly too but also shows that Nino can control his emotions which is an important and deadly trait.  I definitely wouldn’t want to go up against him man.  He truly comes off as a dangerous and crazy motherfucker.