New Jack City is one brutal ad uncompromising look at the drug scene in New York in the Reagan-Bush era. It's seen thriough the eyes of Wesley Snipes who rules Harlem for a while and through the team of narcotics detectives who are given the task of taking him diwn,

Snipes is mesmerizing in his evil. He sees himself as a Reagan era entrepreneur and is pretty ruthless about stamping out competition. He even goes to war with Mafia don John Aprea and each takes significant losses.

As for the team that goes after Snipes they are a diverse lot consisting of director Mario Van Peebles, Ice-T, Judd Nelson and Russell Wong. Each brings a skill set to the eam.

Two supporting cast members really stand out. One is Chris Rock a eather luckless junkie informer planted in Snipes organization. The other is Vanessa Williams one deadly ht woman who works for Snipes.

Almost 40 years later New Jack City is still a powerful film. And sadly the drug problem remains.

It's 1986. Nino Brown (Wesley Snipes) and his Cash Money Brothers become dominant in NYC with crack cocaine and violence. They take over the Carter apartment building as their own fortress. For the next few years, they become the scourge of the New Jack City. Stone (Mario Van Peebles) recruits renegade undercover cops Scotty Appleton (Ice-T) and Nick Peretti (Judd Nelson) to take down the gang. They clean up drug-addict Pookie (Chris Rock). Pookie infiltrates the gang for his friend Scotty.

It's an over-the-top gangster movie. It has the flashy gangster style. Nino Brown is a super villain. Ice-T pulls off a good hardcore streetwise cop but Judd Nelson is too fake overplaying his crazy cop role. Chris Rock is terrific. Most of times, it's got the fun Scarface-cool ridiculousness. Other times, it's goes overboard into bad campy ridiculousness. It is generally more cool than camp.

Mario Van Peebles made his feature film directorial debut in New Jack City where he also co-stars with Ice T, Judd Nelson, Chris Rock and Wesley Snipes in this urban thriller dealing with the rise of a black gangster from the mid 1980s in New York City as he deals in crack cocaine and takes out the competition.

Wesley Snipes is the smart but ruthless aspiring Crime Lord very much modelled on Al Pacino's Scarface. In fact at one point we even see footage of Scarface on the big screen playing in the background. However the film also introduces elements of The Untouchables as Ice T and Judd Nelson play combative detectives in a crime unit trying to bring the gang down.

The film was very hip when it was released as it starts with fast cuts, hip hop music and strong violence as it sets out its stall but as the film progresses things are more measured as the pace slows down to introduce drama as the police try to close in on Nino who starts having problems of his own as schisms start to appear in his gang.

The film is uneven, Snipes is very good but Ice T is not. Rock shows promise in an early role but his subsequent career shows that he did not progress much as a screen actor with his comedy shtick. Its also preachy here and there with its anti drug message and not a well written movie. Just look at the clunky way the war with the Italian mafia is dealt with as the Don is sitting on a table outside soon after he has tried to kill Nino.

Once the opening zest and energy of the film dissipates it becomes very much a routine thriller, a stylish one but routine.