New Jack City | 1991 | Final | UK Quad

New Jack City is a 1991 crime thriller directed by Mario Van Peebles in his directorial debut and produced by Doug McHenry and George Jackson. The screenplay was written by Thomas Lee Wright and Barry Michael Cooper based on a story by the former. New Jack City stars Wesley Snipes, Ice-T, Allen Payne, Chris Rock, Mario Van Peebles and Judd Nelson.

The storyline is based around Nino Brown, a rising drug dealer and criminal gang leader in Harlem, New York City during the 1986 crack epidemic in the city. His gang the Cash Money Brothers (CMB), which consists of his best friend, Gee Money; enforcer Duh Duh Duh Man; gun moll Keisha; Nino’s girlfriend, Selina; and her tech-savvy cousin, Kareem and become the dominant drug ring in New York City once crack cocaine is introduced to the streets. It up to Scotty Appleton, a detective who vows to stop Nino’s criminal activity by going undercover to work for Nino’s gang and gaining his trust in order to bring him down.

Principle photography was entirely filmed in New York City in 1990 and used multiple locations located in and around Manhattan and Long Island. New Orleans-based Rap label Cash Money Records is named after the Cash Money Brothers gang and Cash Money Records rapper Lil Wayne has a series of albums titled Tha Carter after The Carter Complex.

When New Jack City was released it received positive reviews from the critics who praised the film for its cast, storyline, and soundtrack. On Rotten Tomatoes it currently holds a rating of 77% with the general consensus being, “Stylishly directed by Mario Van Peebles, New Jack City offsets its melodramatic streak with electrifying action and a cavalcade of effective performances”. Roger Ebert awarded the film a rating of three and a half stars out of four rating and praised the film saying “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”.

Commercially, New Jack City was hugely successful at the box office. Produced with an estimated production budget of $8,000,000, it took $7,039,622 during its opening weekend and went on to take $47,624,253 at the US box office.

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