Mr-Fusion "New Jack City" is one of those movies that's made by one really good performance. In this case, it's Wesley Snipes, who takes the role of vicious drug lord and makes it his own, commanding every minute of his screen time. Unfortunately, he can't be around all the time, and we're left with Ice-T, Mario Van Peebles and Judd Nelson, who vary from half-decent to awful. No one else comes close to the lead. This probably had more cultural impact back in '91, but 25 years later, it's more bemusing than anything. It veers toward the cartoonish when it's eye is on Scarface levels of drama (even featuring the movie on TV to hammer home the point . . . twice). The sermonizing also doesn't work so well today, and the movie does plenty of that.5/10

jcbutthead86 New Jack City is an excellent and stylish Gangster film/Crime Drama classic that combines great direction,a wonderful cast,intense Action and a fantastic score and soundtrack. All of those elements make New Jack City an great movie and a an unforgettable Gangster saga.Set in New York City during the late 1980s and early 90s,New Jack City tells the story of Nino Brown(Wesley Snipes),a charismatic Gangster who is the leader of the organization CMB(Cash Money Brothers)and begins making and selling crack on the streets becoming more successful. While Nino is running his empire,a group of cops led by NYPD cop Scotty Appleton(Ice-T)who are watching Nino's every move and want to bring Nino down at all costs.New Jack City is a terrific Gangster/Crime Drama that was the directorial debut of actor Mario Van Peebles and truly came out at the right place at the right time in 1991 because the film was released at the height of the Crack epidemic which was destroying America and putting money in Drug dealers pockets and while New Jack City doesn't give viewers a deep message or social commentary or do anything new in terms of the Gangster movie genre,the film gives viewers solid entertainment and style that keeps you glued to the screen throughout. New Jack City is a Gangster movie that combines elements of the Gangster movies of the 1930s with a mixture of Brian De Palma's Scarface(1983) and 1987s The Untouchables with a story about the rise and fall of a Gangster and mixing with a Cop Drama showing viewers both sides of the law as the movie and both sides of the law deal with the Drug game with violence and death. New Jack City is also a movie that is stylish and bigger than life where everything in the crime and drug world including money,clothes and the way Nino Brown and his associates live are so colorful with the colors blue and red to the point where you as the viewer want to live that lifestyle but NJC also reminds us of the consequences of living the life of a Gangster and that in the criminal world there are no happy endings or hopeful optimism. As colorful and light as the film looks NJC is very gritty showing the terrible effects that Crack had on people in the 1980s and 90s and the Horrors of drug addiction and where addiction can lead to prison,death or rehab. When you look at New Jack City you are absorbed into a world of brightness and darkness that is surrounded by blood and money. The character Nino Brown is a classic gangster film character that becomes iconic and memorable from the moment you watch the movie because like a lot of Gangster in films we don't always like Nino or some of the things that he does(in fact some of the things Nino does in NJC are downright horrendous and unforgivable)but we are captivated by Nino Brown because of his coolness and charisma and in Gangster films we always run with the bad guy no matter what. Like in any Gangster film every criminal has a rise and fall and with Nino he fell just as fast as he rose because while Nino had the money and the power Nino couldn't have love or trust in his life and everything inside Nino's organization starts to fall all around him. We could feel bad for Nino but with all of things he does in the film you are rooting for his demise. Nino Brown is a classic character that you never forget after watching the film and is one of the things that makes New Jack City the classic that it is. Although the film isn't an Action movie NJC is filled with a few intense and really well done Action scenes that are simple but effective. The ending is New Jack City is amazing,shocking and surprising but at the same time goes with the Gangster genre. A terrific ending.The whole cast is terrific. Wesley Snipes is excellent,iconic and his best as Nino Brown,with Snipes bringing coolness and charisma to the role. Ice-T(in his acting debut)is wonderful as N.Y.P.D cop Scotty Appleton,with Ice-T being tough and intense. Allen Payne is terrific as G-Money,Nino's best friend and right hand man. Chris Rock is outstanding,dramatic and funny as Pookie,a crack head that's Scott's friend. Judd Nelson is fantastic as Nick Perretti,Scotty's partner. Mario Van Peebles is great as N.Y.P.D cop Stone,a fellow cop that recruits Scott and Nick. Michael Michele(Selina),Bill Nunn(Duh Duh Duh Man),Vanessa Williams(Keisha),Tracy Camilla Johns(Uniqua),Russell Wong(Parks),Bill Cobbs(Old Man),Christopher Williams(Kareem Akbar),Anthony DeSando(Frankie Needles),John Aprea(Don Armeto),Phyllis Yvonne Stickney(Prosecuting Attorney Hawkins),Thalmus Rasulala(Police Commissioner)and Nick Ashford(Reverend Oates)give good performances as well.The direction by Mario Van Peebles is amazing and stylish,with Pebbles constantly moving the camera with a great visual style that's colorful and dark keeping the film moving at a tight pace. Wonderful direction,Van Peebles.The score by Michel Colombier is outstanding,dark and intense and fits with the tone of the movie. Good score,Colombier. The film also has a great soundtrack with songs by Ice-T(New Jack Hustler),Guy(New Jack City),Troop,Levert and Queen Latifah(For The Love Of Money,Living For The City),Color Me Badd(I Wanna Sex You Up),2 Live Crew(In The Dust),Keith Sweat(There You Go)Telling Me No Again,Johnny Gill(I'm Still Waiting). Amazing soundtrack.In final word if you love Gangster Films or Crime Dramas I highly suggest you see New Jack City,an excellent and stylish Gangster Film/Crime Drama classic that you can watch again and again. Highly Recommended. 10/10.

Dan Ashley (DanLives1980) At the beginning of the 1990's during the emergence of a new African-American Hip-Hop and Gangster Rap culture, the film world was hot on its heels as fresh talents emerged. Audiences were witnessing an upheaval of social politics and being informed of the stark realities Hollywood filmmakers had so far avoided. Directors such as Spike Lee, John Singleton and Albert & Allen Hughes introduced the world to the American ghettos with outstanding moral dramas such as 'Boyz N The Hood', 'Do The Right Thing' and 'Menace II Society'.Notably there were also veteran movie directors who seemed keen to capitalise on the gritty urban realism that Hollywood seemed to have shied away from since the crime dramas of the '70's. Abel Ferrara's exploitation flicks 'Bad Lieutenant' and 'King Of New York' reintroduced art-house audiences to the mean streets and ghettos of the Big Apple and even Walter Hill's Baltimore-based 'Trespass', a white man vs. black crime syndicate crime thriller made a nightmarish caricature of the Hood.Standing firmly in between reality and fantasy was Mario Van Peebles' 'New Jack City', which for its pains has been met with divided opinion ever since its release in 1991. Approaching the subject of wealth, guns and drugs cultures' effects on East Coast America from the standpoint of historic cinema works such as Scarface and The Untouchables, 'New Jack' tells the tale of a swaggering petty crook's rise from the streets to infamy by exploiting the poor people on the streets and getting them hooked on the newest, most addictive and dangerous drug available.Taking a beating as crime is on a steady rise, Stone and Park are put on the case with the intentions of bringing down the practically untouchable Nino Brown and their best chance is through Scotty Appleton, who has been chasing Brown for a long time already. Put on the streets with mismatched gun-toting basket-case detective Nick Peretti, it seems that the black cop/white cop alliance could be doomed from the start as racial tensions are clear to see.As the cops fail miserably in their attempts to bring down the street-level drug pusher Kingpin, Brown's life goes from promising to priceless as not even the mafia seem able to touch him but soon betrayal within the ranks seems evident and eventually his own American Dream begins to deteriorate, giving the cops a chance to catch him off guard.Yes, 'New Jack City' does hint sometimes heavily at other classic gangster films but it doesn't steal plot and by no means is this an exploitation film. Mario Van Peebles, previously an actor and director for television, not only captured the bleak and dying New York in the days when Hell's Kitchen and Wall Street were addicted to the same class-A drugs, he provided a wisdom and intellect that became increasingly rare in crime dramas beyond that point, even in his own movies.'New Jack City' is a hip film with contrasts between the bleakness of reality and the colour of the times, richly textured with some of the best soundtracks of the era. It boasts a cast that has achieved great status in the '80's and then some that have gone on to varying levels of greatness. Wesley Snipes, Mario Van Peebles, Ice T, Judd Nelson, Bill Nunn, Bill Cobbs and a young Chris Rock make for a crime drama with admirable range. The only problem with some viewers being that it sometimes feels more like a television drama than an actual movie, but that has never bothered me since 'New Jack' delivers on so many levels, providing chills with both drama and action.I'd recommend this film if you've a fan of Wesley Snipes as the villain, which he's done successfully on numerous occasions because he steals the show so often with his fine performance of the egotistical and cocky Nino Brown. But more so if you just want to add to your collection of classic urban crime thrillers because this is nothing short of just that!

Leigh Burne I don't normally write reviews, but this film annoyed me so much I felt compelled to put some of my opinions forward.Firstly, the script. I really couldn't get over how terrible it was, given the good reviews I'd read before watching the film. Don't get me wrong, I like a brainless, thoughtless actioner as much as anyone, maybe more, but I at least want my action scenes to be strung together with some kind of purpose. Here, stuff just happened. The film would be going in one direction and then, with the flick of a switch, that idea would be abandoned and we'd go after something else. The end in particular suffered from this problem, and left me thinking, "WHY DIDN'T YOU JUST DO THAT IN THE FIRST PLACE?!"Another massive problem I had was with the acting. I'm sure Ice-T has plenty of fans out there, but I couldn't even put up with how bad his acting was in this. It was just atrocious. I wasn't even able to enjoy it in an amused way, because I really got the impression he thought he was being cool. Judd Nelson as his partner also annoyed me, because he seemed to be in the film for no reason other than to have a white guy in the cast. Most of the time he said and did nothing, and in the one scene where he actually takes part in a conversation, I couldn't help but feel that whatever he was saying was irrelevant.The film did, however, have one saving grace - Wesley Snipes. As bad as everything else was, Snipes was really having fun here, and it shows. Like a black Tony Montana, he chews up every scene he's in, (mostly) overcoming the lame script he has to work with. Sadly though, it's not enough to save what was otherwise a very long 90 minutes. Check it out for Snipes, but don't necessarily expect to come away smiling.