Viking Night: New Jack City
By Bruce Hall
September 15, 2015
BoxOfficeProphets.com
This means I need to write it down before a meteor hits the earth or I drop dead of a stroke yelling at my kids, relegating this potential nugget of wisdom forever lost to the ages. So, are you ready? Are you sitting down? Oh, how silly of me. Of course you are; this is the Internet. In that case stand up, wipe the Cheetos off your hands and stretch your legs before you get trench foot. Grab some smelling salts too, because you're about to need them.
Okay, that's better. So here goes:
Brian De Palma could learn a lot from Mario Van Peebles.
Boom. There you go. Stamp it in marble under a bust of my exasperated looking face, because I'm pretty sure nobody in the history of time has ever said that. Brian De Palma could learn a lot from Mario Van Peebles - and it has nothing to do with either man's long-standing creative drought. It's because while Scarface is one of my favorite films, I'll be the first to admit that I admire it primarily as a defining moment in the exploitation genre. It's such an audacious piece of work that I remain willfully blind to its many flaws.
But the genius of Mario Van Peebles is that when he cast Wesley Snipes in New Jack City, he intentionally pays homage to De Palma by telling much the same story, but from a more human and purposeful perspective. That's not to say New Jack City ever fully rises above this pedigree; I consider it a worthy addition to the genre that I love just as much, but for different reasons. It's not even a matter of taste; it's more like a dog whistle that operates on a frequency I couldn't ignore even if I wanted to.
But where Scarface centered on one man's descent into the self-indulgent world of cocaine trafficking, New Jack City is a violent exploitation flick with an emphasis on community, and the destructive influence of drugs on the structure of society as a whole. Where Tony Montana was a refugee, Nino Brown (Snipes) never left home, peddling drugs to the same community where he grew up. When we meet him, he's already a rich man, already a murderer, and already the most wanted man in the city.
And then Nino discovers crack, cocaine's idiot little brother. The Roger Clinton of drugs. It's cheaper than coke but far more addictive - meaning more net profit for Nino, and an epidemic for the community. On the other side of town, clean cut NYPD detective Stone (Peebles) has been trying to bring down Nino for years, but his superiors don’t understand what it’s like out there on the streets, because they’ve all been behind a desk for too long! The crack problem is out of control! The streets are running red with blood! The press is having a field day! What’s needed is a pair of cops who don’t play by the rules, but they still get results because they’re from the streets! Enter Scotty Appleton (Ice-T) an inner city cop with a heart of gold, and his partner Nick Peretti (Judd Nelson), the only white guy in this whole movie. Scotty and Nick don’t like each other very much, but they agree on one thing - Nino must be stopped.
So, their whole big plan (with 30,000 cops in New York, it’s a wonder nobody thought of this previously) is to send an undercover agent to infiltrate Nino’s cartel, the Cash Money Brothers. Problem is, their choice is Pookie (Chris Rock), an inherently gentle but mentally unbalanced former crackhead who is a personal friend of Scotty’s. As you can imagine, the operation goes tits-up almost immediately, claiming the lives of several cops and leading to deep divisions between Stone and his team. The Mayor is displeased, and the press is still doing whatever it is you do on a field day. So everyone is taken off the case and New York’s Finest just give up.
Because, you know, that would happen.
Meanwhile, Nino spends his crack money throwing lavish parties where he screens Scarface for his friends. He giggles about how Tony Montana’s mistake was buying his own hype and believing he was too smart to get caught. So of course, Nino buys his own hype and believes he’s too smart to get caught, making many of the same dumb decisions as his idol. This splits the team, setting the Cash Money Brothers against each other. Scotty and Nick decide to take advantage of this and go rogue, forging a deal with a rival gang, and setting in motion a plan to take Nino out from the inside.
None of this is groundbreaking, and some of it - as you’ve no doubt noticed - is downright cliché. The story overall is unremarkable, resembling just about every other episode of NYPD Blue ever made. As if to compensate for this, the film starts with a flyover of Manhattan, backed by an audio montage of radio announcers describing the literal decline of Western civilization. The rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, crack is whack, the economy is tanking, cats and dogs are indeed cohabitating. It’s a little heavy handed, to the point where whenever Ice-T pauses to lecture someone about selling crack to his “own people,” you almost expect him to turn to the camera and say “Knowledge is half the battle. Word.”
But somehow there’s more to it than that. What makes New Jack City better than Scarface is that it has a genuine message about a genuinely troubling problem, and the people involved with the film seem honestly invested in it.
This is Van Peebles’ first time behind the camera and while the remainder of his career has not been particularly interesting, this was clearly a very personal movie for him. And unlike Scarface, most of the characters in New Jack are utterly memorable. Snipes begins a solid, decade long run of super stardom here, as unforgettable as Pacino without needing to go so far over the top to do so. Chris Rock makes a perfect crackhead - he’s not funny - he’s tragic, and it works. Ice-T plays to type, and Judd Nelson essentially plays Bender from The Breakfast Club after 10 unrewarding years as an underpaid inner city cop dealing with reverse racism and recovering from a crippling paint huffing addiction.
And he’s absolutely goddamn perfect.
This is what was missing from Scarface - even a shred of humanity. New Jack City is a clichéd, preachy, paint-by-numbers movie that might have been immediately forgotten except for the fact you can’t forget any of the people IN it. I could have been an hour longer and I still would have watched the whole thing, because I enjoyed watching these people go through the motions, as many times as I’ve seen the same thing before. The best part is, Nino’s love of Scarface led to a whole generation of real life rappers also embracing the movie, and also completely missing the point as well. With the inevitable remake on the horizon, it’s too late for De Palma, but whoever ends up directing it could learn a thing or two from New Jack City.
Knowledge is half the battle. Word.