New Jack City

Wesley Snipes adds an indelible character into the registry of iconic movie gangsters

Directed By: Mario Van Peebles
Other Notable Films From Peebles: Only this one. 
Starring: Wesley Snipes, Ice-T, Chris Rock before he got veneers, Radio Raheem from Do The Right Thing, Bender from The Breakfast Club
Screenplay By: Barry Michael Cooper and Thomas Lee Wright
Movie Synopsis: A criminal organization rises to power against the backdrop of the late ‘80s crack epidemic while an NYPD task force tries to take them down.
Signature Line: “Sit your five dollar ass down before I make change!”

THE INTRODUCTION
An accounting of time, and people, and context

There are a lot of things that make New Jack City great: 

Ice-T as a rugged New York City detective willing to skirt the lines of fair play if it’ll help make his community a little bit safer. Chris Rock as an affable stick-up kid turned crack addict who eventually crumbles under the weight of his life. Allen Payne as the underappreciated second-in-command who just wants somebody to show him a little bit of respect. The soundtrack, the auspiciousness of the directing, the wardrobe, the gaggle of appearances by real-world musicians, the collection of ancillary characters that includes a guy with a stutter, a woman with a gun, and a race-obsessed wildcard… yes to all of it. All great. 

But there's one thing that makes New Jack City special: Wesley Snipes as Nino Brown. He is the towering center of the film, and an unforgettable villain who makes one of the most compelling, unexpected character turns in moviedom.  

The turn in question: For basically all of New Jack City’s runtime, Nino presents himself as a lionhearted, ruthless, unflappable gangster. He very convincingly sells the idea that he is a true all-caps TOUGH GUY when he holds court with his team, or disciplines someone for stepping out of line, or nonchalantly calls for the murder of eleven mafia members without fear of retribution. It turns out, however, to be an illusion. Nino is only able to operate as the alpha predator in a situation when his side of the equation is stacked fat with leverage, a central flaw that gets revealed during the movie’s final action sequence when he finally finds himself in a one-on-one confrontation with the cop who’s been trying to bring him down (Ice-T’s Detective Scotty Appleton).

Their showdown begins with gunfire, but after a handful of errant shots, Scotty is able to disarm Nino, thus reducing things to a simple fist fight between the two. It’s the first time in the movie that Nino finds himself without a sizable advantage in his favor, and he folds immediately. 

Scotty beats the fuck out of Nino, going so far as to throw him through a window, drag him down a flight of metal fire escape stairs, and then punch him off the second story of a building into a pile of trash. Throughout the attack, Nino lands only one desperate, impotent punch. Gone is the bravado, and the strength, and the scowl, and the power of his acid-dipped tongue. 

All that's left is cowardice. 

It’s a commanding, layered take on a gangster kingpin, and one that positions Nino Brown alongside cinema’s most evocative criminals. 

THE VIEWING
A timestamped rewatch of New Jack City 

1:06: The soundtrack for New Jack City is a top-level compilation. It features, among others, Queen Latifah (the first truly great rapper-turned-entrepreneur), Ice-T (a forefather of gangsta rap), Keith Sweat (the best singer ever to be named after a liquid), Color Me Badd (one of the all-time great One Hit Wonders), and 2 Live Crew (a Miami rap group so good at talking about being horny they inadvertently became freedom of speech activists). It’s such a big part of why New Jack City is so much fun to watch. It feels like every 45 seconds there's a thrilling new needle drop. 

2:26: Two quick things about Mario Van Peebles (the director) as we make our way through the opening: (1) “Mario Van Peebles” is an incredible name. It sounds like what a little kid would come up with if you asked them to think of the fanciest name possible. (2) Peebles takes a couple of very auspicious swings while shooting New Jack City. My favorite of the bunch is how he decides to open the movie with a 54 second zoom-in shot that begins with that really wide view of the Queensboro Bridge I posted above and ends with this close-up of a guy being dangled over the edge of it: 

It’s a really cool trick, particularly on the rewatch when you know what’s happening. It’s fun to squint your eyes and try to find the guy in the shot as early as possible.

2:40: Wesley Snipes is here. He plays Nino Brown, a ruthless drug dealer with aspirations of becoming a full-on kingpin. Snipes is a volcano of charisma in this movie. Every time he’s in a scene, it’s like everyone else is in black and white and he’s in technicolor.¹ This is easily one of my four favorite roles Snipes has ever played.²

2:41: P.S. How about this for the launch of the WESLEY SNIPES IS A MOVIE STAR campaign: From 1989 to 1992, Snipes reeled off Major League (one of the three best baseball movies ever made!), King of New York (Christopher Walken and Lawrence Fishburne!), Mo’ Better Blues (Denzel Washington and Spike Lee!), New Jack City (Nino Brown!), Jungle Fever (Spike Lee again!), White Men Can’t Jump (the best basketball movie ever made!), and Passenger 57 (“Always bet on black”!). That's a fucking crazy run. 

3:05: P.P.S. They dropped that guy off the bridge. He’s dead. We never find out who he was or why precisely he needed to die, only that Nino deemed it so, and thus it was.³ (Do you think it was an accident that the first person we see get killed in New Jack City is a professional-looking white guy? I’ll bet it wasn’t. I’ll bet it was a message to the audience. One of those NOBODY’S SAFE kind of things, like how they start Terrifier 3 off with the clown hacking that kid to pieces.)  

3:57: Ice-T and Chris Rock are here. Ice-T plays Scotty Appleton, an NYPD detective, and Rock plays Benny “Pookie” Robinson, a stick-up kid who Appleton ends up taking a liking to.⁴ The first time we see Appleton, Peebles introduces him with a similar sort of long zoom-in shot (this one takes 40 seconds and ends on Appleton and Pookie mid-conversation). Peebles had a really nice touch while shooting New Jack City. I wish he’d have directed more movies. 

5:05: Scotty was trying to buy a kilogram of cocaine from Pookie, but Pookie was running a scam. As soon as Scotty showed Pookie the money, Pookie punched him in the stomach, grabbed the backpack full of money, then took off. Which means… WE GOT OURSELVES A CHASE. (Chris Rock did an interview a few years back where he talked about how this was originally supposed to be a car chase but they were constantly running out of money while shooting the movie so they had to improvise a bunch of stuff. I’m glad it happened this way. Watching Scotty try to run down a guy on a bike is way more fun.)

5:06: P.S. The song that kicks off the chase is “New Jack Hustler” by Ice-T. It’s gotta feel so cool to not only have a chase scene in a movie where you’re the guy who wins the chase, but also your music is soundtracking the chase. It’s like the action version of that scene in American Psycho when Patrick Bateman is pointing at himself in the mirror while having sex. 

6:24: The chase ends with Scotty shooting Pookie while the two run through a busy playground. Four things about that: 

1. I have to assume there was a better time to shoot Pookie during the chase than when he got to a PLAYGROUND FULL OF CHILDREN. 

2. Scotty shoots Pookie in his achilles tendon. Do you think that means Scotty’s a really good shot and that was on purpose, or he’s a really bad shot and that was by accident? (I wanna give him the benefit of the doubt, but there's a scene at the end of the movie where he gets into a shootout in an apartment living room where he takes five close-range shots at Nino and misses every single one of them, so I’m not fully certain.) 

3. After Pookie gets shot, Scotty jumps on top of him, puts a gun in his face, then yells, “You think you’re slick, you little punk, blasphemous, dope fiend bitch!” I really hope I never get shot in my life, but I REALLLLLLLLY REALLLLLLLLY hope that if I do get shot, the guy who shot me doesn’t call me a “blasphemous dope fiend bitch” afterward.

4. It’s very impressive to me that Scotty does this whole chase without his sunglasses falling off. He must have them shits superglued to his ears. 

7:21: Allen Payne is here. He plays Gee Money, Nino’s second-in-command. I really like Payne in this role. He’s got great Little Brother energy. Perfect casting. 

7:49:I bet when the producers pitched this movie, they were like, “Let me paint a picture for you: “Wesley Snipes. Dressed in all black. Wearing sunglasses. A big chain around his neck. Gold rings on his fingers. He’s taking a call on one of them old big brick cell phones. And he’s being driven around in a steel gray, topless Jeep… What do you think?” And the studio execs all jumped up and gave each high-fives, except instead of high-fiving with their hands they high-fived with their boners. 

10:27: You know what’s always a fun scene in movies? When someone is walking through a club. It’s a consistently great setup. The four best SOMEONE WALKING THROUGH A NIGHT CLUB IN A MOVIE moments: