In the New York City neighborhood of Harlem, Nino Brown and his gang, the Cash Money Brothers (CMB), become the dominant drug ring once crack cocaine is introduced to the streets. His gang consists of Gerald "Gee Money" Wells, his best friend since childhood; enforcer and personal bodyguard Duh Duh Duh Man; gun moll Keisha; Nino's girlfriend, Selina Thomas; and her tech-savvy cousin, ex-bank teller Kareem Akbar.
Nino converts the Carter apartment complex into a crack house. Gee Money and Keisha kill rival Fat Smitty, and the CMB forces out the tenants and landlord. Meanwhile, Scotty Appleton, an undercover police detective working with the NYPD, attempts to make a deal with stick-up kid Pookie, who absconds with the money. Appleton chases and shoots Pookie in the leg, but released on bail. As the years pass, Nino's gang successfully run the streets of Harlem with absolute power.
When Stone, the leader of the CMB police operation, comes under pressure from NYPD Commissioner Fred R. Price, Appleton, currently on suspension for shooting Pookie, volunteers to infiltrate Nino's gang and is partnered with loose-cannon Nick Peretti. Elsewhere, mobster and tax collector Frankie Needles attempts to get protection money from Nino, who refuses to pay. While Appleton and Peretti observe Nino and his gang handing out Thanksgiving turkeys to the poor, Appleton spots Pookie, now a crack addict, and soon gets him into rehab.
Later, Pookie offers to help bring down Nino. Against his better judgment and the disapproval of Stone and Peretti, Appleton recruits Pookie as an informant. When Pookie relapses, Gee Money realizes that he is wired and orders the Carter destroyed. The cops find Pookie's booby-trapped corpse; Peretti defuses the explosives seconds before it explodes. Nino angrily warns Gee Money against repeating such a costly mistake.
After Pookie's funeral, Appleton and Peretti, no longer needed by Stone, go undercover as drug dealers. After bribing Frankie, Appleton infiltrates the CMB, partly due to Gee Money's increasing ambition and drug use. Though Nino distrusts them, he agrees to do business. After relating an anecdote about his own violent initiation into a gang in 1974, Nino warns that he will kill both Appleton and Gee Money if any problems occur. Appleton gains Nino's trust when he reveals information about Gee Money's side deal and saves him from a gun-toting "Old Man" who had earlier appealed to police for help against Nino.
While Nino, Appleton, and the CMB attend a wedding, Peretti sneaks into Nino's mansion to collect evidence. Don Armeteo, Frankie's boss, sends mobsters to kill Nino, and a massive shootout erupts. When Nino uses a child as a shield, Appleton attempts to shoot Nino in the back; Keisha is killed. Later, Nino throws Selina out when she condemns his nature, before killing Don Armeteo and his crew single-handedly.
Stone, Appleton and Peretti arrange a sting operation to nab Nino. Kareem, aware of Appleton and Pookie's connection, exposes the former, and a shootout ensues. Peretti saves Appleton by killing the Duh Duh Duh Man, and Nino escapes. That night, Nino confronts and regretfully kills Gee Money. After the gang's collapse, Nino holes up in an apartment and continues his criminal empire solo. Appleton, Peretti, and the police assault the complex, where Appleton brutally beats Nino, revealing that it was his mother whom Nino killed in his gang initiation. Peretti dissuades Appleton from killing Nino, who is taken into custody.
At his trial, Nino pleads guilty to a lesser charge, claims to have been forced to help the gang due to threats, and identifies Kareem as the leader. He is sentenced to only a year in jail. As Nino speaks with reporters outside the courtroom, the Old Man confronts and fatally shoots him in the chest, causing Nino to fall over a balcony to his death. Appleton and Peretti leave satisfied as onlookers look down at Nino's dead body.
In the closing moments, an epilogue states that the crack epidemic is still ongoing and decisive action must be taken to stop real-life Nino Brown analogues.
The film is based upon an original story and screenplay written by Thomas Lee Wright, who had worked as a story editor at The Walt Disney Company and Columbia Pictures before moving to creative executive at Paramount Pictures.[3] According to Carl Hart, who corresponded with Wright following Hart's criticism of New Jack City, the screenplay was originally written as The Godfather: Part III, and featured a protagonist who sold heroin rather than cocaine.[4] Wright wrote a treatment for Paramount on the idea, which they liked enough to have him try to do a first draft. Wright based his script to interviews he had with people from Little Italy in New York along with the story of Nicky Barnes, the black kingpin that had modeled his criminal organization in Harlem after the Mafia. Wright later wrote, directed and produced Eight Tray Gangster: The Making of a Crip, a documentary of gang life in South Central Los Angeles.[5][citation needed]
The screenplay was co-written by Barry Michael Cooper, a former investigative reporter with the Village Voice who would later write the screenplays for the 1994 dramatic films Above the Rim and Sugar Hill, the latter of which also starred Snipes. Cooper's rewrite was adapted from his December 1987 Village Voice cover story entitled "Kids Killing Kids: New Jack City Eats Its Young," about the drug war in Detroit.[6] The account referred to the 20th anniversary of the 1967 riots in Detroit, and in its wake, the rise of crack cocaine gangs in the late 1980s, such as Young Boys Inc., and the Chambers Brothers. The original story received notice from Quincy Jones, who sought a meeting with Cooper. He was then tasked with re-writes on a screenplay that had been done about the life of Nicky Barnes.[7]
Filming occurred in New York City between April 16 and June 6, 1990.
Reception
Harlem's real life Graham Court, known in the film as the "Carter".
New Jack City was favorably received by film critics for its cast, storyline, and soundtrack.[8]Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three and a half stars out of four, writing:
Truffaut once said it was impossible to make an anti-war movie, because the war sequences would inevitably be exciting and get the audience involved on one side or the other. It is almost as difficult to make an anti-drug movie, since the lifestyle and money of the drug dealers looks like fun, at least until they're killed. This movie pulls off that tricky achievement. Nino, who looks at the dead body of Scarface and laughs, does not get the last laugh.[9]
The film initially premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 17, 1991, before being released nationally on March 8, 1991. The film, produced with an estimated $8,000,000 budget, grossed $7,039,622 during its opening weekend. It became the highest-grossing independent film of 1991, grossing a total of $47,624,253 domestically. The film holds an 80% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 35 reviews, with an average rating of 6.7/10. The site's consensus states: "Stylishly directed by Mario Van Peebles, New Jack City offsets its melodramatic streak with electrifying action and a cavalcade of effective performances."[11] On Metacritic the film has a weighted average score of 61 out of 100, based on 13 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[12]
The film was released on DVD in Region 1 in the United States on August 25, 1998 and Region 2 in the United Kingdom on July 26, 1999, distributed by Warner Home Video. The film was re-released on DVD as a Two-Disc Special Edition in Region 1 in the United States on August 23, 2005 and Region 2 in the United Kingdom on January 23, 2006.
Special Edition DVD features:
Commentary by: director and co-star Mario Van Peebles
New Jack City: A Hip-Hop Classic
Harlem World: A Walk Inside
The Road to New Jack City
Original music videos: "New Jack Hustler" (Nino's Theme) by Ice-T, "I'm Dreamin'" by Christopher Williams, and "I Wanna Sex You Up" by Color Me Badd
Original theatrical trailer
The film was released on Blu-ray in the United States by Warner Home Video on August 14, 2012.[16]
In 2019, Deadline announced that Warner Bros are rebooting the film with Malcolm Mays writing.[22]
Stage play adaptation
In September 2022, film producer Je'Caryous Johnson announced the launching of the stage production adaptation of New Jack City: Live on Stage after his successful adaptation of another film, Set It Off: Live on Stage. The stage play stars Allen Payne, who reprises his role as "Gee Money", Treach as Nino Brown, Flex Alexander as "Pookie", Big Daddy Kane as Stone and Gary Dourdan as Scotty. The stage production's first preview ran October 29–30, 2022 at the Gas South Theater in Atlanta, Georgia and then opened a nationwide tour from November 2022 and extended until the summer of 2023.[23] The play returned back by popular demand in January 2024 running in Houston, Texas with a final announced date set for Memphis, Tennessee June 2024.[24]Omar Gooding was cast as Stone, while the latter three actors reprises their role from the tour.[25]
Super Fly is a 1972 American blaxploitation neo-noir crime drama film directed by Gordon Parks Jr. and starring Ron O'Neal as Youngblood Priest, an African American cocaine dealer who is trying to quit the underworld drug business. The film is well known for its soundtrack, written and produced by soul musician Curtis Mayfield. It was released on August 4, 1972.
Melvin Van Peebles was an American actor, filmmaker, writer, and composer. He worked as an active filmmaker into the 2000s. His feature film debut, The Story of a Three-Day Pass (1967), was based on his own French-language novel La Permission and was shot in France, as it was difficult for a black American director to get work at the time. The film won an award at the San Francisco International Film Festival which gained him the interest of Hollywood studios, leading to his American feature debut Watermelon Man, in 1970. Eschewing further overtures from Hollywood, he used the successes he had so far to bankroll his work as an independent filmmaker.
Mario Van Peebles is an American film director and actor best known for appearing in Heartbreak Ridge in 1986 and known for directing and starring in New Jack City in 1991 and USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage in 2016. He is the son of actor and filmmaker Melvin Van Peebles, whom he portrayed in the 2003 biopic Baadasssss!, which he also co-wrote and directed.
The Supreme Team was an organized crime syndicate that operated throughout the 1980s in New York City. Their headquarters was in Baisley Park, in South Jamaica, Queens, New York City, New York. The leaders were Kenneth "Supreme" McGriff and his nephew, Gerald "Prince" Miller. In 1989, McGriff spent 10 years in a federal prison for a narcotics conviction.
William Henry Duke Jr. is an American actor and film director. Known for his physically imposing frame, Duke works primarily in the action and crime drama genres often as a character related to law enforcement. Frequently a character actor, he has starred opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger in Commando and Predator, and has appeared in films like Car Wash, American Gigolo, No Man's Land, Bird on a Wire, Menace II Society, Exit Wounds, Payback, X-Men: The Last Stand, and Mandy. In television, he is best known as Agent Percy Odell in Black Lightning.
Christopher Lawrence Williams is an American singer and actor. Williams, who emerged during the late 1980s as a recording artist for Geffen Records, has scored many R&B hit singles, notably "Talk to Myself" (1989), "I'm Dreamin'" (1991) and "Every Little Thing U Do" (1993).
William Goldwyn Nunn III was an American actor known for his roles as Radio Raheem in Spike Lee's film Do the Right Thing, Robbie Robertson in the Sam Raimi Spider-Man film trilogy and as Terrence "Pip" Phillips on The Job (2001–02).
Calvin Lockhart was a Bahamian–American stage and film actor. Lockhart was perhaps best known for his roles as Reverend Deke O'Malley in the 1970 film Cotton Comes to Harlem and Biggie Smalls in the 1975 Warner Bros. film Let's Do It Again.
Above the Rim is a 1994 American sports drama film co-written and directed by Jeff Pollack in his directorial debut. The screenplay was written by Barry Michael Cooper, adapted from a story by Benny Medina.
Allen Payne is an American actor. He is best known for his role as Jason Alexander in the 1994 drama film Jason's Lyric, as well as his portrayal of C.J. Payne on the family sitcom Tyler Perry's House of Payne. Payne is also known for his portrayal of Lance Rodman on NBC's The Cosby Show during its final two seasons. On film, Payne also played Gerald "Gee Money" Wells in the 1991 film New Jack City, and Detective Justice in the 1995 film Vampire in Brooklyn.
Paid in Full is a 2002 American crime drama film directed by Charles Stone III. The characters Ace, Mitch, and Rico (Cam'ron), are fictionally based on the 1980s Harlem drug dealers Azie "AZ" Faison, Rich Porter, and Alpo Martinez. The title of the film is borrowed from the 1987 album and song by Eric B. & Rakim.
The crack epidemic was a surge of crack cocaine use in major cities across the United States throughout the entirety of the 1980s and the early 1990s. This resulted in a number of social consequences, such as increasing crime and violence in American inner city neighborhoods, a resulting backlash in the form of tough on crime policies, a massive spike in incarceration rates, and a sharp escalation of the war on drugs. The crack epidemic was, at one point, the deadliest drug crisis in United States history. It has since been surpassed by the opioid/fentanyl epidemic in the 2020s.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, African American organized crime emerged following the first and second large-scale migration of African Americans from the Southern United States to major cities of the Northeast, Midwest, and later the West Coast. In many of these newly established communities and neighborhoods, criminal activities such as illegal gambling, and speakeasies were seen in the post-World War I and Prohibition eras. Although the majority of these businesses in African American neighborhoods were operated by African Americans, it is often unclear the extent to which these operations were run independently of the larger criminal organizations of the time.
Frank Lucas was an American drug lord who operated in Harlem, New York City, during the late 1960s and early 1970s. He was known for cutting out middlemen in the drug trade and buying heroin directly from his source in the Golden Triangle in Southeast Asia. Lucas boasted that he smuggled heroin using the coffins of dead American servicemen, as depicted in the feature film American Gangster (2007), which fictionalized aspects of his life. This claim was denied by his Southeast Asian associate Leslie "Ike" Atkinson.
The Chambers Brothers were a criminal organization heavily involved in the distribution of crack cocaine in the city of Detroit, Michigan, during the 1980s. The brothers consisted of: B.J., Larry, Willie and Otis Chambers. They also had three other sisters and a set of twin brothers. One of the twins, Fredrick, became known for being a top notch military drill sergeant in California. The siblings moved to Memphis, Tennessee, while the four brothers became notorious nationally when the Detroit Police Department confiscated video tapes of the brothers counting their laundry baskets full of money, and flaunting their excessive wealth. Their mother died in 2003.
The Return of Superfly is a 1990 American crime drama film directed by Sig Shore. The film is a sequel to the 1973 film Super Fly T.N.T.. It stars Nathan Purdee as Youngblood Priest and Margaret Avery.
Greater Harlem, in the northern section of the New York City borough of Manhattan, has historically had high poverty and crime rates. Crime in Harlem is primarily related to illicit activities such as theft, robbery, drug trafficking and prostitution. Criminal organizations such as street gangs are responsible for a significant portion of crime, particularly violent crime. The leading cause of death among young black males in Harlem is homicide. According to a survey published in 2013 by Union Settlement Association, residents of East Harlem perceive crime as their biggest single concern. Greater Harlem has one of the highest violent crime rates in New York City despite significant declines from historic highs.
The Rollin' 30s Harlem Crips are a faction, or "set", of the Crips alliance of street gangs. The gang was formed by Belizean American Crips who had moved from South Los Angeles to Belize and then to Harlem, New York.
Crazy Six is a 1998 American gangster film directed by Albert Pyun and starring Rob Lowe, Mario Van Peebles, Ice-T, Ivana Miličević and Burt Reynolds. It was released direct-to-video in the United States on July 29, 1998.
Je' Caryous Johnson is an American stage and film producer, author, playwright and director known for his Off-Broadway stage productions in the urban theater circuit. He is also known for his work of adapting stage plays from various classic urban novels from authors such as Michael Baisden's books Men Cry in the Dark (2002) and Maintenance Man (2003) and Eric Jerome Dickey's book Friends and Lovers (2004) as well as films such as Two Can Play That Game (2017), Set It Off (2018) and New Jack City (2022). Johnson is the author of the urban fiction novel Men, Money and Gold Diggers and is a four-time national championship playwright and became the honoree recipient of the NAACP Trailblazer Award in 2007. Je'Caryous has also been acknowledged as the first producer to adapt an African-American romance novel into a stage theater production.
References
1 2 "New Jack City (1991)". Box Office Mojo. May 21, 1991. Archived from the original on September 6, 2015. Retrieved September 1, 2015.
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