King of New York: Abel Ferrara Brings a City to Life

New York in the 90’s was a far cry from what a visitor might see today. Instead of family fun events and chain stores galore; crime, adult entertainment, and all the other calling cards of a seedy underbelly would be on full-frontal display. This is the kind of city that Abel Ferrara (Bad Lieutenant) envisioned while making King of New York. The director used the bleak look of the streets at night to create a modern age Film Noir tale of a crime lord trying to make his city better by any violent means necessary.    

The Breakdown

Frank White (Christopher Walken) gets released from prison after many years behind bars. Upon his release, his associates on the street take out a rival criminal organization as a coming home present for Frank. The group, lead by his right hand man Jimmy Jump (Lawrence Fishburne), visit Frank at his posh penthouse suite to figure out what the plan is now that Frank is free. One by one, Frank offers his rival gangs the opportunity to join businesses with him. When each gang turns down his offer he kills every last one and takes their drugs to sell. Frank sees the profits from the drugs going towards building a hospital in one of the poorer neighborhoods of the city. A group of police officers, Dennis Gilley (David Caruso) Victor Argo (Roy Bishop) and Thomas Flanigan (Wesley Snipes), don’t share Frank’s vision on how to clean up the streets. Rather, they only see the murder and violence that his crew begins to inflict on the city. The officers decide that Frank must be taken down by any means necessary including breaking whatever laws it might take. Dressed as a rival gang, the men bursts into a club where Frank is spending the evening and kill most of Frank’s crew. Unlucky for the cops, Frank and Jump manage to get away. The officers catch up with Jump first, but he kills Thomas before than can finally take him out. Frank confronts Bishop explaining that he killed all the other kingpins because they were involved in things he did not approve of like human trafficking and child prostitution and didn’t trust the police to stop the situation. Frank chains Bishop down in order to go after the rest of the police officers involved. Bishop escapes and confronts Frank on the subway. Frank kills Bishop, but is shot in the process. Frank tries to get away, but as the police close in, Frank accepts that he has been shot and is on his way to death.  He closes his eyes and drifts away.

The Analysis 

None of the main characters in King of New York can be seen as clean cut black and white good guys and bad guys. For all his faults as a violent criminal and drug dealer, Frank White believes he is a just man doing the right thing. He sees himself as Robin Hood robbing from rich, criminal organizations that have extorted the city and giving back to the people of the streets. He doesn’t mind the violence he creates because he feels that the ends justifies the means. The police officers on the other hand, try to take Frank and his crew down within the confines of the law, but when they can no longer accept Frank’s flaunting of his untouchability, they feel they are left with no other choice than to break any law necessary to bring him to justice, or to kill him once and for all.    

King of New York encompasses some heavy hitters (especially during the time of its production). David Caruso, Wesley Snipes, Lawrence Fishburne and of course the great Christopher Walken are all household names but when production began in 1990, they were somewhat mid-tier actors. Abel Ferrara gave them a shot. Keeping with the authenticity of the story, Ferrara successfully used hip-hop as the primary sound of the film. While the decision was met with aversion in the beginning, King of New York would not be a true reflection of the streets without the overall tone illuminating the violence, crime and seediness of New York all together.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=afGTBhHoFIA%26nbsp%3B

Trailer Credit

Photo: Reteitalia, Scena International