Thoughts on New Jack City-91'

This was a bit of a sleeper hit when it was first released. The directorial debut of Mario Van Peebles, who also starred and the film boasts a terrific lead performance by Wesley Snipes. The film is competently directed, is never boring and entertaining to watch, but having not seen it for years and after viewing it recently, I find it a tad half baked and uneven. It really needed to have some work done on it's screenplay and the characters needed more nuance and to be fleshed out. It was also over too soon and much of this I put down for the need to see more of Snipes strut his stuff as Nino Brown, the megalomaniac head of his crack empire. He was let down by the rest of the mediocre cast and stood out like a sore thumb.   

I also found the film a bit phony and cheesy in parts, was jarringly edited and perhaps a tad too gaudy with it's presentation. It came over as more of a late 80's slick action flick, than a gritty anti-drug message film, as what it really needed to be. Chris Rock was fun to watch, but over the top and comical for a performance that was supposed to be dramatic with a serious edge, and Ice T tried his best with what he had, but needed some more acting lessons. Judd Nelson was a wasted character, uninteresting and came across as his usual smug self. He didn't really add any substance, other than being a white cop in a black world that knew the ropes and that was it.

This film could have been an undisputed classic, had more effort gone into the script and story, and a more skilled and polished presentation been rendered. Perhaps Van Peeples didn't need to star, so more focus could have been on his directing and working his way through the script which should have been hot to the touch and almost on fire, rather than just soggy and smoldering.