Starring: Christopher Walken, Larry Fishburne, David Caruso
Director: Abel Ferrara
Rated: R
Distributor: Umbrella Entertainment
The gangster drug lords in this film don’t just shoot people – they pump them full of so many bullets that resuscitation isn’t even a option. The first victim falls just minutes after the film opens. We see the ice cool Frank White (Christopher Walken) being released from prison and picked up in his flash black stretch limousine. Then the carnage begins as he organises the reclamation of his territory from a suite at the Plaza Hotel.
His old crew of heavy gangstas, including the psychotic Jimmy Jump (Larry Fishburne), rally around and the cocaine flows. There are private parties with sexy chicks dancing to Schoolly D’s hip hop classic ‘Am I Black enough for you?’, and Walken even gets to show off a few of the moves he later made famous in Fatboy Slim’s ‘Weapon of Choice’ music video.
Frank White has dreams of becoming Mayor and organises a benefit concert with the smooth, real-life crooner Freddy Jackson to help raise funds for a community hospital. But his delusions of grandeur come unstuck in the face of some hard core cops (Victor Argo, David Caruso and Wesley Snipes) who haven’t failed to notice the alarming body count rising in his wake.
Director Abel Ferrara creates a Gotham City that would be the envy of any self-respecting vampire. He even uses footage from the 1922 classic Nosferatu to drive home the idea of a nocturnal, blood-sucking subculture, and dwells on shots of a ghostly looking White thirsting after the city’s moonlit skyscrapers.
Crime in New York City was cleaned up considerably under Rudolph Guiliani’s time as Mayor making a sequel almost impossible but Ferrara is currently making a prequel called The Last Crew which is due out next year. Sex, drugs, money and power: they’re irresistible themes.