King of New York
Made: 1990
Cast: Christopher Walken, Laurence Fishburne, David Caruso, Victor Argo, Wesley Snipes
Director: Abel Ferrera
Screenwriter: Nicholas St John
Cinematographer: Bojan Bezelli
Producer: Augusto Camintino
"My feelings are dead; I feel no remorse. It's a terrible thing."
- Frank White
There was not a gangster movie like it before King of New York. Movies about outlaws have always been entertaining and rooting for the underdog or criminal is usually a choice favorite among audiences, but that's not what this movie is really about. The last time I watched it all of could think of is how much this movie seems like every other hollywood action gangster movie of of the 21st century, yet I can't think of any before it that are like it. What's funny is KONY is not a hollywood movie at all, anything but.....That might seem like a silly thing to say, but this movie tends to get overshadowed by others by more conventional directors, the year 1990 for example. Two huge critically acclaimed movies came out that year along with this one, Goodfellas and Miller's Crossing, and both of those movies are great. Separating KONY from those is the lack of a well-established story: Goodfellas was based on a true mob story while Miller's Crossing was a fictionalized throwback to prohibition era times. KONY is based in modern times, which is always trickier and sure to be dated in years to come, but it's a sprawling, insane, psychotic stew of a film.
The opening shots display an overview of NYC in 1990 that is dark, murky, and dangerous. Filled with late 80's gangster rap music (tame by today's standards), the Bronx of KONY is an awful place to be, but the question of how it got that way is never really addressed. It is just "is" that way. Frank White (Chris Walken) is released from prison in the first scene of the movie, and his old mobster crew is getting ready to welcome him back to the fold, clearing out rival gang leaders with total abandon. The police accost Frankie almost immediately out of jail and basically say "we know what your up to". White wants to be the head gangster of NYC, but the "king" is what he calls it because the other drug pushers and scumbags were running this city into the ground. His justification is he didn't kill anyone that didn't deserve it. All of this is stereotypical gang land movie plot sounding to this point. Most vigilante films that play cops vs robbers make the cops look bad, and until about the midway point this film seems like one of those. However the cops of NYC, focusing on the mod squad of Curuso, Snipes, and Argo, are given equal treatment in the story, exploring their family and relationships to each other. There are no sides taken in King of New York; White and his gang are not your typical dumb gangster toughs and Argo's cops are not just going to play by the rules and wait for them to break the law.
The cast of this movie is a role call of famous action stars of the 21st century. Christopher Walken does more acting in this film by not saying anything at all, acting silent and wordless for many key scenes. There is a touch of humor to his role, at least as first, but he inhabits this character with a focus most actors yearn to portray on screen. It's his best leading role, which is saying a lot after some great performances to this date (Deer Hunter, Pennies From Heaven, Dead Zone). Laurence Fishburne and Wesley Snipes roles seemed reversed, but both show great range at an early point in their careers. Between his mentorship role in Spike Lee's School Daze (1988) and a similar father figure in Boyz in the Hood (1991), Fishburne plays Jimmy Jump with an intensity and ease unlike anything I have ever seen. Whether ordering food in a local fried food joint or laughing manically while killing cops, you can't take your eyes off of him. In an awe defining career of great roles (Morpheus in The Matrix, Ike Turner in What's Love Got to Do With It, a chess guru in Searching for Bobby Fischer), this may be his best supporting role. His predecessor is James Cagney. David Curuso is stellar as the rouge cop, giving a speech midway through that affirms a cop's role in catching criminals is not that different than being a criminal. There is so much depth given to the lead roles in this film that the characters are too large to be summed up in mere words. Joey (Paul Calderon) has one of the more pivotal roles as White's spokesman and Steve Buscemi and Gaincarlo Esposito are henchmen with not too many lines. Even the smaller characters in the movie are well planned out, making
every death count as the hunt begins.
The screenplay is lively and suits the dark ambience of the destructive world and lifestyle. There is a lack of preaching and speeches in this movie; they lead by example.
It is a very African American themed movie, one of the first in this context. Most of the leads are black and the hip hop culture and character actions are well ahead of their time (New Jack City of the following year 1991, stole a lot of the action and plot points from KONY). At a very early part, the movie juxtaposes the first violent actions of the gang by the arrival of White in the real world. It is an odd way to tell and how and when the two main characters meet. White addresses Jump, "What's in the cup your drinking?" "Root beer, want some?" He replies. "There's some things I don’t do." says White, a great example of the kind of dark comedy used. The screenplay is very well thought out and it took writer Nicholas St. John over five years to fully craft it. The showdown between Snipes and Fishburne is a great example of the well-established themes of the movie (two sides of the same coin), leading to the aftermath at a funeral and one of the most shocking deaths of any movie I've ever seen. Something should be said about the vulgarity in the movie, though it fits the actions of the characters for sure. The original cut of the film was rated X and it doesn't take a genius to see how that was possible.
Abel Ferrera is one of the greatest outsider directors there ever was. Even today, his films take a long time to be seen by most people in theaters (as of the time of this review, why hasn't 4:44 the Last Day On Earth, made in 2010, had showing in most large cities?). He sticks close to his guns and his movies always revolve around a deep aesthetic of getting the truth told. He can do it through movies about vampires (The Addiction), the passing of friends (The Funeral), the fine line between good and evil (Bad Lieutenant), and the apocalypse itself (4:44). The destruction of prejudices and stereotypes is what this director is all about. This is shown in KONY: an experimental theatre act where a Civl War era slave shoots a cop, a fake looking charity event with a Sammy Davis Jr. type singer, or following a character intensely with the camera without knowing whether they have been shot or are in danger or not. When Ferrera showed his movie at the Sundance film festival in 1989, he was never asked back. He is not embraced by most critics and shuns off relations with hollywood, despite giving many of cinema's best actors their greatest roles (Chris Walken, Harvey Kietel, Willam Dafoe, Chris Penn). KONY was his breakthrough movie, and began a string of successes for him in the 90's. Some people hate this film though, it is the kind of movie that provokes a gut reaction, a love it or hate it if you will. It is a fact though, that when examining great directors working in the 1990's, Ferrera is a towering presence. His Bad Lieutenant and The Funeral are as hard hitting as acting and storytelling get. Hell on Earth. Bring the kids!
What separates KONY from traditional crime dramas is its attitude. The attitude of the makers behind the camera expressed through the actors. While as i said there is a lack of showboating speeches common to these types of movies such as "crime doesn't pay!", many interesting possibilities and three dimensional observations are made: even the worst murderer can show compassion to children, sometimes you need to break the law even if you are the law, is it right to kill people who deserve it just because you are a little less selfish in your goals, you can't trust who you thought you could, you are never too old to do the right thing. Existential dread like this has made me come back to this movie time and time again, proving there is something really timeless about it. This movie is an ode to drug culture gangsters and to gang violence in big cities, but is this not an accurate portrayal? We'd be lucky for a generous boss like Frank White, because those who exist in reality are often much worse with no good intentions.
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