To The Victor Go The Spoils: King of New York (1990)

Frank White (Christopher Walken) is out of prison. He’s been gone a while, and in his absence some former allies and rivals have gotten a lot fatter and wealthier. Now, he sees his chance to grab the pie. He’s head of a gang of mostly African Americans, whose roster includes his number two, triggerman Jimmy Jump (Laurence Fishburne), calculating Joey Dalesio (Paul Calderon) and methodical science minded Test Tube (Steve Buscemi) among others. His rivals are Columbians like Emilio El Zapa (Freddy Howard) and King Tito (Ernest Abuba), Italians like Arty Clay (Frank Gio), and Chinese hoods like Larry Wong (Joey Chin). Frank’s not a man who harbors racial grudges, however. Anyone who wants to work and make some money has a chance to work for him. If many people won’t take that chance? Well, fuck ’em. If some will spit in his face? Well, fuck ’em with extreme prejudice.

He’s got a line on some major quantities of cocaine, a terrific place to launder the money (a hospital of all places), and though he sort of appears like a Robin Hood character, Frank White is anything but. He’s cold to the core, an ice block underneath that carefree grin and bumping dance moves. He’s a gangster cut from the old model, refashioned for the stylish 1990s, and with his eyes on some serious prizes.

However, he has his share of enemies. Not only the other gangs in New York, but old school cops like Roy Bishop (Victor Argo), who understand the need for method and rule of law, as well as younger, hot headed sorts like Dennis Gilley (David Caruso) and Thomas Flanigan (Wesley Snipes) who see their efforts wasted and are maybe thinking about fighting just as dirty as their enemy is in order to nail him. Every time they bust one of Frank’s people, then Jennifer (Janet Julian), the councilor on Frank’s retainer (and dick) will spring them within 10 minutes. Can anyone stop Frank White’s trajectory, and should anyone even try? Abel Ferrara helms a complex, sprawling crime flick King of New York (1990).

The film starts with a lot of doors opening for Frank as his day of release arrives, and it ends with that very same man sitting alone in a traffic-mired cab. All the events between fit into the spaces between seeing opportunities and reaping consequences.

There’s an underlying disappointment with the way violence dehumanizes its participants, a kind of consideration about the differences between cops and crooks. Both occupations involve a degree of necessary violence, and yet when the younger breed of cop decide to play the game by more crooked rulesets, they do not succeed in their goals and all but erase the lines between themselves and the people they are waging war on. Ferrara’s film offers a thoughtful examination of a man’s rise to power, Frank’s perception as the titular King, as a movie star, as a man without any worries whatsoever juxtaposed with the real story: He’s got more worries than most, more aspirations he will never see. This is a man who craves “just one year” to see what he can accomplish, and he does not get even that.

I have to appreciate the way a lot of this story is told not through dialogue but intriguing visuals. Cinematographer Bojan Bazelli wields the camera and the lights in intriguing ways.

There are many times when the camera glides over symbols of wealth and power, which are striking and poignant. Here, the camera floats along, observing a lovely suit with the same regard as a bottle of expensive champagne as it does a beautiful woman in her underwear. These are all equally prized objects, spoils that go to the wealthiest, most powerful men. This is not a film that offers any meaty parts for women, in other words. They are objects, they are things to be looked at, possessed. Some may be more lethal than others, posing with guns, but they are treasures, ornaments, affectations.

King of New York is a gritty, grotty crime movie of the gangster tradition. It has the familiar structure of the rise, the inevitable fall, and the beautifully sadistic moments between those extremes. It’s a meditative flick, in many ways as well. After seeing his release, Frank’s character basically remains mute through a lengthy drive through the city, observing the decline of areas he’s known, the (presumable) increase in prostitution and vice, and then the arrival at his expensive hotel room for a shower and a change of clothes. The film takes its time with these materials, keeping the adrenaline running by cutting away to other scenes where Jimmy Jump and others wax a couple of Frank’s rivals in spectacular fashion. There’s sex on display, there’s violence aplenty, and there’s cerebral moments all interwoven together, adding an unexpected dimension to the gangs and guns brand of entertainments.

Abel Ferrara is not trying to infringe on either Francis Ford Coppola’s stylish territory or on Martin Scorsese’s personal visions. King of New York is a terrific complement to flicks like The Godfather (1972), Mean Streets (1973), and Goodfellas (1990). It’s not a pulpy yarn, though it has pulpy elements. It’s not a cerebral film, though it certainly has its meditative and philosophical layers. It’s an Abel Ferrara movie, so it’s both a celebration of the grotesques one might encounter in New York as well as a castigation of such characters’ addictions to banal behaviors like violence, vice, and victimization.

The film’s languid pacing will likely bore to tears those viewers looking for a thrill a minute. It’s not a rollercoaster ride of a movie, it’s more akin to a Michael Mann flick like Heat (1995), a stylish though moral examination of lives spent on the edge of transgression. It’s a character study about people whose body language and dialogue seldom match up and about people whose character arcs lead inevitably to messy, bloody ends. It’s not funny, it’s loud, and it’s abrasive. It’s a beautifully shot movie about ugliness, and the slow burn pacing is perfectly matched with its complex interplay between different factions. By the end of the movie, however, there is no character that we feel comfortable knowing. Al Pacino’s Tony Montoya in Scarface (1983) is a monster, but he’s a charismatic one that we understand; the same cannot be said for an equally monstrous, equally charismatic, yet ultimately enigmatic Frank White. Nicholas St. John’s script for King of New York does not treat its gangster in the heroic way Brian De Palma’s execution of Oliver Stone’s script does for Tony Montoya.

Walken is perfectly cast here. He well knows how to present one emotion on his face, while showing the conflicting things going on underneath. There’s a terrific scene when he first encounters Fishburne’s Jimmy Jump where there’s a bit of posturing going on, some goofy dancing, a lot of smiles, and occasional quirks of seriousness and almost alien coldness that invades his face. The words are always warm, but the examination of his allies is always scientific, removed, and adroit. He’s the kind of guy who approaches management the way some kids identify new specimens to asphyxiate and tack up in their butterfly collection. Really great performance.

Laurence Fishburne is also perfectly cast here. It’s a terrific complement to the cooler role he would play two years later in Deep Cover (1992). Jimmy Jump is a wild man gangsta with charm and meanness who’s still liable to apologize to a single mom for swearing in a restaurant and to give her kids money for video games. Fishburne gets plenty to play with here, and he unleashes a truly impressive “irritating laugh” to piss off his enemies.

King of New York is a methodical bit of filmmaking. It’s not trying to break the tried and true gangster story structure, but it’s not a formulaic approach either. Instead, it’s a film that’s fascinated with its subject’s many facets, though it never seems to find one that’s noble or even just uncompromised by baser human sins such as greed or lust. It’s a film that gives us a close examination of a man who maybe wants everything, who flirts with destruction to get it, and who is not surprised when that flirtation reaps some nasty consequences.

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King of New York is available in DVD, Blu-ray, and streaming editions.

Writing for To The Victor Go The Spoils: King of New York” is copyright © 2022 by Daniel R. Robichaud.

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