It’s always nice to discover something usually not considered mainstream cinema that’s still high in quality, a forgotten gem if you will. King Of New York neatly encapsulates the time when rap was hitting the streets big time and influenced organised crime in New York City. With a who’s who of American film and TV actors, there’s not a lot to hate in this classic slice of mob action.
Upon his release from Sing Sing prison, former mob head Frank White (Christopher Walken, Click) sets out to regain his old kingdom of New York City. However, he’s had a change of heart from the greed like other gangs have and becomes a “Robin Hood” style martyr; using drug money to fund the building of hospitals in the local community and such. The local police force still doesn’t take kindly to Frank, so he and his head solider Jimmy Jack (Lawrence Fishburne, The Matrix) have to take on the police and rival gang members head on; on a road paved with deceit, murder, and double crosses.
King can boast about such an extravagant cast with tonnes of familiar faces (some already established and some starting out at the start of the 90’s). Walken was quite reputable when this movie was made, after his role in The Deer Hunter won him an Academy Award, but he proves here he can be an actor of different styles with a brilliant performance as the rebuilding White. The real star of the show is Fishburne as Jimmy Jack; he’s on top of his game as the streetwise Run-DMC inspired leader of White’s crew, and Jimmy Jack is the main focus of the gang’s actual dirty work; he brings a lot of humour to the film, but at the same time is serious enough to be taken as one tough S.O.B.
The renegade cop taskforce set up to take down White’s rebuilding empire doesn’t stop the impressive name list; David Caruso (C.S.I. Miami) and Wesley Snipes (Blade) want to take him down as hard as they can, even going to extreme measures to complete their goal (shown by their utter frustration in body language and expressions, even to the point when they can’t relax at a police wedding). Throw in Steve Buscemi (Boardwalk Empire), Giancarlo Esposito (Breaking Bad) and John Turturro (Transformers) in bit parts and we have an electric mix of actors who would go onto bigger and better things, whilst here enjoying a collective of great acting.
We also have wonderful cinematography here; led by director Abel Ferrara (Bad Lieutenant). All filmed on location, in and around New York state, it’s almost a love letter to the grimy side of the Big Apple. I wasn’t too surprised to learn that no set design was really done, since at the time there were still a lot of poor places in NYC that you could just turn up and film to capture the feel of poor “ghetto York”. The lighting aspect is important in creating the mood of the film and it’s turned down wherever possible to create a thoroughly miserable place for everyone to live in.
The whole gangster aspect of the late 80’s/early 90’s is captured very well, and with the rise of rap music at the end of the 80’s, the influence of black gangsters on this movie cannot be stated enough; from the rap-fuelled soundtrack to the full-on accurate ghetto dialogue, it’s very well representative of the time; and with things like ‘bling’ being represented, it must be stressed how important rap culture was back then; with highlights like Jimmy Jack clearly being based on Run DMC sticking out. There’s a very interesting dynamic with the traditional Italian mobsters not going with the times and shunning the use of more modern, young, black gang members; it only just touches on the subject, but Ferrera was going somewhere interesting with the theme of racism in gang culture in New York City.
From the opening scenes with full-on executions (by tricking someone into a phone box & horrifically murdering them with point blank shotguns), to the brutal escalation between White’s gang and the Police near the end of the film, you know you’re in a hard action crime film. There’s no respite in the hard hitting action, although it does have a bit of an odd mix of good and bad action scenes; the worst coming with the car chase sequences on the bridge. With presumed tight spending (since this was the equivalent of a low budget indie film back in the day), I doubt they wanted to smash up the cars too much since they probably had to be given back to the rental lot in 6 hours before the lease ran out.
The “Robin Hood” aspect of the plot was intriguing, and whilst it’s not unusual for crime bosses to become obsessed with doing little things to pay their communities back for raising them to be where they are now (whilst also using them as tax write-offs), it’s not quite so true in Frank White’s case; from his performance, you can tell Walken’s White is genuinely motivated to provide a better world of the youth in his part of NYC. This is developed by him wiping out anyone who does mob crime in “a bad way” (i.e. child prostitution) and using it as a convincing defence when confronting the bent police.
Upon researching this film, I was surprised audiences slaughtered it upon release; whilst it had favourable reviews (and still does to this day) people allegedly walking out of preview screenings and the premiere is not a good sign. But, you know, I don’t get why. King of New York isn’t the greatest mob film you’ll ever see, but it’s sure as hell better than what passes as crime nowadays (here’s looking at you Safe House). King Of New York is a terrific little film and a genuine surprise, and welcome addition, to my Blu-Ray collection.
Picture:
Being it’s presented in such a short ratio, I’m disappointed we can’t have the opportunity to see King in a wider screen aspect. Whilst there’s not too many action scenes, I would have preferred some scenes had the space to breathe a little, and for the audience to take in a full scope of what’s occurring. Despite some film wear, and grain, the transfer to Blu-ray is great; with no slowdown caused by compression. The grit this crime film encapsulates is almost thrown through the screen at your face with how perfect some of the scenes are done, and thanks to this Blu-ray, the raw essence of the showdown between White and the bent police chief is captured full; with all the lighting, camerawork and focus, it creates an intriguing climax to a sad tale.
Audio:
Coming in two audio qualities, we have 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio and 2.0 PCM. The 5.1 is a great improvement from the movie’s original quality (highlighting the dialogue when needed), whilst the 2.0 has the raw original audio which some people may prefer. Being a bit of an old school rap fan, I’m a massive fan of the influence of Schooly D on the film’s soundtrack. The orchestral theme played throughout the film is genuinely moving, and suits White’s story very well, and while a bit more effort could have into correcting effects like gun fire (despite being common, they do stand out badly), the majority of the audio is crisp, and both the dialogue and music ooze quality sound production.
Extras:
What you lack in quality extras-wise gets made up in quantity. The documentary A Short Film about the Long Career of Abel Ferrera isn’t really short (clocking in at about 45 minutes), and instead of being a career retrospective is mainly people just talking about his career to cameras. They jump about his timeline too making it hard to follow unless you’re clued up on Ferrera’s work.
The 80 minute Abel Ferrera: Not Guilty docu-film has such an odd style; instead of asking Ferrera about working on King whilst filming, and having a voiceover to describe what’s happening, it’s straight raw footage – following Ferrera around in back of cabs as he shoots. Very strange, and the runtime may put a few people off.
It’s more than disappointing that this UK release didn’t get the Schooly D documentary included with the U.S. release; as considering how important the music of Schooly is to King¸ it seems an odd omission. You have to query how hard would it have been to get some of the names back to do a piece for the documentary; I mean, they’re not global megastars and this probably launched Snipes’ and Fishburne’s careers.
The rest is pretty standard fare with three trailers for the film, two commentaries (one just with Abel Ferrara and a crew commentary), separate interviews with Ferrera & producer Augusto Caminito and basic scene selection.
The Bottom Line:
Critically scorned when released, I’m struggling as to why King Of New York got such a bad rap sheet at the time. It’s a smashing crime film which is never boring, and doesn’t outstay it’s welcome. A better extras selection would have been nice, but King of New York is a hidden gem of the crime genre, touched up to a high-quality quality Blu-ray standard for a new generation, and a film that comes highly recommended.
Terry Lewis – @thatterrylewis.
