Film Clash!! Cast Your Vote!

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When you have a sound clash, two sound systems battle records back and forth and the crowd decides the winner.  I’m going to put two films head to head and compare them. At the end, I will declare a winner. You can cast your vote in the ‘comments’ section. This is a recurring feature of the Screening Room we call…. FILMCLASH!

New Jack City, directed by Mario Van Peebles, is a film about the growth and demise of a drug-dealer in post Reagan-era New York. King of New York, directed by Abel Ferrara, is about a drug dealer getting out of jail, determined to eliminate his competition. Both of these iconic films are available on DVD, on bootleg and otherwise.

New Jack was written by Thomas Lee Wright and Barry Michael Cooper. It lays out the tale of the Cash Money Brothers, made up of The Dutter Man (Bill Nunn), G-Money (Alan Payne) and the ruthless Nino Brown (Wesley Snipes). Snipes had a few roles before and after he did that music video with Michael Jackson, but I couldn’t name one. We can all probably agree that this is the part that made him a star, and made it cool to be dark-skinned. The light-skinned era was waning, despite what Redhead Kingpin was on. When Wesley Snipes stabbed Christopher Williams in the hand that was pretty much the end of an era. Ice T and Flavor Flav made their onscreen debuts in this joint. Mario spends a lot of time trading on his Dad’s good name, but sadly, all of Jr’s films look like shit. I mean, they look AWFUL. The scenes aren’t blocked out well, the color is either over-the top or washed away and he seems to have a real lack of imagination, I haven’t seen anything that would change my opinion.  The story is solid, even if the acting is not. Wesley Snipes’ Oscar moment is probably when he fell over the banister in the end. Somehow, he wasn’t nominated and that’s a shame, because I doubt his screen moments will get any better than that.

King of New York was written by Nicholas St. John, a cat I have never heard of who has an apparently prolific pen that seems to skew towards the artsy-fartsy-type shit. This film is cast with a lot of cats you would see in a lot of 90s films: Giancarlo Esposito, the fabulous (and underrated) Lawrence Fishburne, Theresa Randle, David Caruso and the list goes on. Ferrara comes from out of an arthouse bag and you can see it onscreen. The whole film screens like a better episode of Miami Vice, which is to say that it’s bright and loud, except when it’s not supposed to be. It’s not the kind of film you’d think a lot of brother would sit through, but Biggie Smalls named checked it a lot, and it’s not uncommon to hear some rapper claiming that he’s pushing weight like Frank White, this film’s protagonist. Interesting to me is that it really captures a moment in time, with Fishburne in the DMC hat and dookie rope chain and Schooly D’s music driving the beat. Can’t hate on Schooly D,  son. You have no idea how this film will end, until it ends. I think the same could be said of New Jack, making this a pretty even bout, I think.  

Both of these films try to be morality tales of money, drugs, lust and greed. New Jack’s message is hard boiled, while King’s message is over easy. They both try to make some commentary about Republicans, Reaganomics, the war on the poor and everything else that incubated hip-hop culture and rap music. They both do a good to great job with hip-hop culture on screen.  Van Peebles’ New Jack looks like a student film compared to Ferrara’s King, but don’t twist it. Ferrara is as self-indulgent and oo-laa-laa as all those arthouse motherfuckers, and while it looks a’ight, it feels like Brian DePalma on the cheap. So King looks better than New Jack, but so does your wedding video. Mediocrity versus Overindulgence, to me, reads like a Double Fail.

I feel bad about this particular FilmClash! because it’s like watching a little kid get beat up for his lunch money-I mean, how in the world do you compare Wesley Snipes as Nino Brown to Christopher Walken as Frank White?!  New Jack captures a zeitgeist, but Walken could do King Of New York as a one-man hand-puppet show and kill it. Both of these films are good stories told well, but I gotta keep it gulley.

King Of New York thrashes New Jack City

What do you think? Cast your vote below. If we get more than 15 votes in two days, the winning film will take on Oliver Stone and Brian DePalma’s Scarface.

This story is filed under: Entertainment, The Screening Room