New Jack City

A crime lord ascends to power and becomes megalomaniacal while a maverick police detective vows to stop him.

• Director: Mario Van Peebles
• Genre:Crime / Drama / Thriller
• Runtime:101 minutes

Cast

Wesley Snipes : Nino Brown
Ice-T : Scotty Appleton (as Ice T)
Allen Payne : Gee Money
Chris Rock : Pookie
Mario Van Peebles : Stone

Nino Brown (Wesley Snipes) and his gang, the Cash Money Brothers (CMB), become the dominant drug ring within New York City when crack cocaine is introduced to the city streets during the 1980s and mid 1990s. They convert an entire apartment complex (“The Carter”) into a crack house. Undercover cops Scotty Appleton and Nick Peretti (played by Ice-T and Judd Nelson) try to convict the gang with evidence of the drug trafficking. They recruit Pookie (played by Chris Rock), a former stick-up kid and recovering drug addict, to work undercover at “The Carter” to help them gather incriminating evidence against Nino and the Cash Money Brothers. Unfortunately, Pookie relapses, failing the mission. He is found dead, wired to a bomb which Peretti manages to defuse. When they realize their cover has been blown, the CMB have abandoned The Carter. After Pookie’s funeral, Appleton takes matters into his own hands by going undercover as a drug dealer who wants to get in with the CMB. Appleton gains the trust of Nino by revealing information about Nino’s assistant of operations, Gee Money (Allen Payne), and his desire to build a drug empire of his own. When Appleton’s cover gets blown, Nino cannot trust anyone now and kills his once best friend. Nino Brown’s megalomania separates Nino from his gang and is the catalyst for their downfall. After the gang’s collapse, Nino holes up in an apartment and continues his crime empire solo.

Eventually, Nino is caught by the undercover cops. Appleton beats Nino viciously before drawing his gun. Appleton reveals that Nino was the young gangster that killed his mother, a teacher, as an initiation into his first gang. Peretti convinces Appleton to let Nino live and lets the other cops take him away, and a trial begins.

After turning state’s evidence while on the stand, Nino Brown pleads guilty to a lesser charge (though still a felony given the judge’s note that the punishment would include at least 12 months prison time). He points the finger at Kareem Akbar (portrayed by Christopher Williams), another member of his organization, whom he falsely claims was the actual leader of CMB and that he had threatened to kill Nino’s mother. As Nino walks triumphantly out of the courthouse, he is murdered by an older man (Bill Cobbs) who had earlier tried to convince the police about Nino’s destruction of his community but finally took the law into his own hands. Read more

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