King of New York
King
of New York is one of those amazing movies that works
completely on two different levels at the same time. On one level we’ve got Larry ‘Morpheus’ Fishburne whipping a bucket of fried chicken at David
Caruso’s head and yelling at Wesley ‘Blade’ Snipes “C’mere,
I’ll smack the black off of ya!”. And I think this level
appeals to every one. Lotsa shooting and saying of the word ‘motherfucker’ is one
of those things like pizza that fuckin’ everybody
loves.
Then
on the other level we get a complex character study. For example, in an early scene Christopher Walken has been recently let out of prison, and is riding
the metro and tongue kissing with the prosecutor who put him in jail many years
ago. He unbuttons her blouse and
flagrantly fondles her bare breasts. The
two get interrupted by a gang of street thugs who enter the subway car and pull
out switchblades and demand his wallet.
He steps back a bit from the lawyer lady to reveal both her breasts and
that he has a pistol in the belt of his trousers. He lies telling the thugs that he’s a cop and
after an awkward staredown moment he throws them a
huge wad of cash and tells them his address and offers them work in his crime
syndicate.
The way they
let scenes unfold and play with your expectations clearly lets you know this is
an artsy movie, they respect the audience enough not connect all the pieces
right away. They also respect the
audience enough to have Christopher Walken breakdance to the song ‘Am I Black Enough’ performed by Schooly-D.
One major
surprise in this film is that Wesley Snipes plays the bitch. In a movie that also has Steve Buscemi and David Caruso I’d figure it would be one of
those two guys who’d spend the movie getting their ass kicked. But no, Snipes takes it the whole film. Walken beats him
up, Caruso insults him, Fishburne kicks his ass, they probably deleted a scene where he got sprayed by a
skunk or something too. I mean, I know Walken is crazy and I’d probably be hesitant to fight him
not knowing what crazy shit he’d pull, but seeing him bitchbeat
Snipes to the ground was kinda painful.
There’s a scene
where one guy quickdraws his dick out of his pants
and pisses on another guy. This was kinda hard to believe given most undergarments require some
fiddling around and most people have some degree of shyness to their bladder,
so you’d think you could see it coming that a guy was taking out his dick and
aiming it at you and get out of the way.
Anyway, that part made me laugh, but I’m also really glad it wasn’t
Snipes getting pissed on because that would’ve been putting the guy through too
much in one movie if you ask me.
The movie opens
with Walken being released from prison and being
greeted by a limousine that comes equipped with both a black and a white hooker. They ride around through town and even make a
point of slowly rolling through the red light district so that Walken and his hookers can look at other hookers, possibly
for recruitment purposes. We learn soon
enough that Walken is head of a mostly black New York
crime syndicate. The only member of his
posse who isn’t black is Steve Buscemi who still
dresses like a rapper complete with bling and
bandana.
The district
manager of his posse is played by Larry Fishburne,
playing pretty much the same cracker thug as he did in Death Wish 2. It might even be the same character,
after all he did block that bullet with portable stereo. Anyway, it’s not the suave Lawrence Fishburne we’ve come to know in recent years.
This film is
completely unrealistic in that Walken does too much
of his own dirty work. His organization
clearly saves money by getting everybody to wear multiple hats. For example, his hookers also act as butlers
in his luxurious suite and are also skilled with assault rifles which they wield
when they help out with gangster action.
I liked seeing Walken run around uzis akimbo wasting rival gangs with his hooker soldiers
flanking him, but the idea of the boss riding along with the boys on the types
of hostile takeovers he pulls in this movie was ridiculous. It reminded me of Nick Cage: Lord
of War in this respect, and I think King of New York is going for a
similar allegorical character.
The movie makes
a point of addressing race frequently and making it a big issue. Walken’s character is
named Mr. White and is the leader of an all black (except for Steve Buscemi) gang. He
waxes philosophical about how somebody’s going to profit off the misery and
destruction of drugs so it might as well be him. But his social conscience motivates him to
pour money into a hospital that services the ghetto where he sells the bulk of
his drugs. When you couple that with all
the imagery of Walken dancing to rap music I don’t
think I’m off base by thinking this film is trying to make some allegorical
statement about relationship between rich white dudes and poor black dudes.
You watch this
movie and you’re really not sure where it’s going to go. For the first little while the pieces haven’t
even begun to come together yet and Walken starts
talking about running for mayor of New York.
He later starts hosting telethons to save a hospital that serves an
underprivileged slum, but then he also meets with criminal contacts to discuss
big drug deals in the hospital’s patient dormitories while they’re being used.
It got me
really wondering if we were going to get some sort of There Will Be Blood
style flash forward at the end where Walken is in the
White House as President and the movie would end with some thug he’d pissed off
along the way infiltrating the Oval Office and the two having a scuffle around
the floor until one bashed the other’s head in with the Presidential red
telephone. It didn’t go that far,
because then it would’ve been my favourite movie ever. But it does give you a satisfying ending.
Like I said,
this movie works on two levels. I’m sure
lots of jokers would enjoy this movie simply on a Scarface ridiculous
exploitation movie level, but there’s definitely too much purpose to this movie
for me to ignore the deeper complex shit.
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