Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10525 in DVD
• Released on: 2006-06-01
• Rating: Suitable for 18 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Dubbed, PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English, French
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, German, French, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Arabic
• Dubbed in: Italian
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 96 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Some pundits called it a flawed, exploitative action film that glamorised drug dealing and the luxury of a lucrative criminal lifestyle, spawning a trend of films that attracted youth gangs and provoked violence in cinemas. Others hailed it as a breakthrough movie that depicted drug dealers as ruthless, corrupt, and evil, leading dead-end lives that no rational youth would want to emulate. However you interpret it, New Jack City is still one of the first and best films of the 1990s to crack open the underworld of cocaine and peer inside with its eyes wide open. It's also the film that established Wesley Snipes as an actor to watch, with enough charisma to bring an insidious quality of seduction to his role as coke-lord Nino Brown, and enough intelligence to portray a character deluded by his own sense of indestructible power. Director Mario Van Peebles stretched his otherwise-limited talent to bring vivid authenticity and urgency to this crime story, and subplots involving a pair of tenacious cops (Ice-T, Judd Nelson) and a recovering coke addict (Chris Rock) provide additional dramatic tension. Although some critics may hesitate to admit it, New Jack City deserves mention in any serious discussion about African American filmmakers and influential films. --Jeff Shannon

Special Features
1.85 Wide Screen
French\Italian
English\Italian
English
Region 2
Dolby Digital 5.1 English French Italian
Dolby Digital 5.1
Interactive Menus
Scene Access
Arabic\Dutch\English\French\German\Italian\Portuguese\Spanish

Synopsis
Nino Brown is an American success story - with a twist. He's young, handsome, smart, rich, successful and prominent in his community. But Nino is a big-time drug baron and head of a street gang and two cops are out to take him down.

Customer Reviews

So bad it's good
I honestly cannot believe the reviews this film has been getting.
This film is attrocious.
It is however, so bad that it is extremely funny and watchable.
Black & white (read: original odd couple) detective duo (Ice T & Judd Nelson) are brought together to bring down Nino Brown's (Wesley Snipes) drugs empire. Despite butchering dozens of civilians and cops in a botched raid on Nino's drugs factory, the two eventually get their man.
The film manages to cram in every conceivable cinematic set-piece (read: cliche) before it's conclusion, including my own personal favourite, a montage where Ice-T turns Chris Rock from a pitiful, smack-addled wreck to a beacon of fitness.
I have to say I loved watching this film - incredibly easy on the brain. I think I guessed most of the dialogue about 10 minutes before it happened to be said. Wesley Snipes is always good value and seeing Judd 'How come I've only got two lines in the entire film?' Nelson is always a treat of course.
Just to check the bloke from Finland or wherever he comes from... I doubt very much if the drugs trade in New York ever resembled this film. Not now, not ever.

Watch it 3 times or more
I have to say I thought this film was very bad when I first watched it, but I have seen it probably 10 times now in total and I think it deserves a good rating. Yes there are flaws in the acting and stereotyping and with the plot, but thats not the reason I like the film so much. New Jack City is set to such a specific time in the early 90's that it just has a such an appeal, it seems so out of date that the style is retro. The film is over the top in most ways you can imagine but again that makes it enjoyable and entertaining to watch. If you like films such as Boyz in the Hood and Menance II Society you will definately like this film. It remains a film that is very time specific, with a real inner city feel that you don't see in a lot of gangster films. A great soundtrack and one that is worth watching numerous times.

An excellent achievemant
'New Jack City' is a very reasonable film with some nice directing and many well cast parts. The story is entertaining with a few twists along the way and some characters that you can relate to (to a certain degree). The main attraction however, is the performance of Wesley Snipes, who is on top form as the evil drug dealer that everyone hates. Most of the other actors also put on a good show making for an enjoyable overall experience. The film also has quite a meaningful message which, so long as it's not too overdone, I find to be quite interesting.

The essential story is that of cops fighting to keep drugs off the streets of New York. Their main obstacle in this endeavor is the drug kingpin played by Wesley Snipes. What follows is an exciting story of undercover operations combined with some meaningful moments trying to show the horrors that drugs can bring about. This is punctuated with some excellent action sequences moving you to the edge of your seat before culminating in an emotional climax.

The only things that let this film down are the performance of Chris Rock, who is not at all believable, and some very unrealistic moments in the story. For these reasons I wouldn't recommend buying the film but you should definitely watch it if you get the chance.