The next few weeks are going to be a lot of fun for fans of Tulsa King. Season 3 will premiere on September 21 and run until November 16. Even better, the Paramount+ series has just been renewed for a fourth season. This is great news considering the cancellation worry that often surrounds even the best of modern streaming shows. There’s no doubt that Paramount execs truly believe in Taylor Sheridan’s vision.
The future of the show looks very bright as Deadline further revealed that Season 4 is “not envisioned as the final chapter,” adding, “talks are underway with Stallone for a new two-year deal and, if the series’ ratings continue to be strong, it could go to six seasons.” Such sweet words, and there’s more. The new season is set to add even more stars to its cast. Robert Patrick will be appearing as a villainous patriarch, while Samuel L Jackson will also have a supporting role in preparation for his spinoff, NOLA King. But what else can fans watch on Paramount+ as they wait? New Jack City is perfect.
‘New Jack City’ Is a 98-Minute Condemnation of the Drug Trade
New Jack City, starring Wesley Snipes, is a solemnly gorgeous art concept — perhaps the most methodically stylized gangster film since Goodfellas, which was released a year earlier. Hollywood was overflowing with crime movies in the late 1980s and early 1990s, so this particular one stood out for its anti-gangster themes, depicting both the joy and pain that accompany a life of lawbreaking. Throughout its running time, the Mario Van Peebles film subverts the glorification and deepens the condemnation by taking us closer to the criminal’s hopes and delusions, before turning them inside out.
Here, the central character is Nino Brown (Snipes), an ambitious Harlem resident who has taken advantage of the crack epidemic and built a powerful trafficking gang known as the Cash Money Brothers (CMB). As he ascends to the top of New York’s underworld, Nino seizes control of an entire apartment complex known as The Carter, transforming it into a highly secured base for his drug operations. By adopting the usual tactics of murder, coercion, and intimidation, he becomes the most feared person in the city. But as his empire grows, young people’s lives get destroyed by addiction, insecurity rises, and families fall apart.
Angry and haunted by the effects of the drug trade on his own family, Detective Scotty Appleton (Ice-T) vows to stop Nino. He teams up with veteran detective Nick Peretti (Judd Nelson) and recruits Pookie (Chris Rock), a former addict trying to change, to infiltrate the notorious gangster’s inner circle. Talkative and harmless in appearance, Pookie quickly gains Nino’s trust and starts gathering evidence. Regrettably, he suffers a relapse and gets outed, resulting in him getting whacked in an explosion orchestrated by Nino’s men.
At this point, the audience is left in despair. Who will ever stop Nino? He seems to have eyes and ears everywhere. And will an arrest even achieve anything? New Jack City will surprise you in more ways than one. As it’s all happening, you’ll be marveling at the palette, all noisy and precise, and the action, all instant, quick, and bloody.
A Cocky and Unapologetic Crime Boss Keeps Audiences Glued in ‘New Jack City’
Tulsa and Harlem might be miles apart, but crime tends to take the same shape in whatever region, so long as the perpetrators rely on the same template. Never chained by morality or a conscience, Nino notices an opportunity during the crack epidemic and seizes it. Dwight Manifredi (Sylvester Stallone) does the same thing as soon as he is sent to Tulsa by the higher-ups in his New York-based crime family. He realizes that most of the resources in the city’s underworld remain untapped, so he starts ‘mining,’ achieving much success in the process.
Dwight and Nino are similar enough to share a cup of tea and exchange numbers if they were to ever find themselves in a gangster summit. They each like the finer things in life (aren’t Dwight’s suits the best?), and they each have capable lackeys surrounding them; half warriors, half-indentured servants, who go on murderous errands and whose loyalty is never questioned. They know they belong in hell, but obedience is a must — their bosses changed their lives. And throughout their respective journeys, the storytellers and camera operators try to sustain the audience’s baffled view of the crime bosses, stolid men with sharp minds. Who can understand these unrepentant, mysterious men who murder routinely?
More parallels can be spotted between Dwight and Nino’s courtroom behaviors. The two men have very convincing arguments to justify their actions. While Nino’s scenes are more iconic (thanks to the dialogue), both men adopt the same strategy of standing up for themselves rather than sitting back and waiting for fate and the jury to determine the trajectory of their criminal careers, as is usually the case with most gangster movies and TV shows. Here are two bold men who try to prove that they aren’t evil, and that no one should hate the player; they should just hate the game.
Want to hear one of the most powerful villain monologues? Listen to Nino in a courtroom scene where he explains that drug lords are simply businessmen, and that they aren’t to blame for anything that’s happening.
“You’re the one that’s guilty. The lawmakers, the politicians, the Colombian drug lords, all you who lobby against making drugs legal. Just like you did with alcohol during Prohibition. You’re the one who’s guilty. I mean, c’mon, let’s kick the ballistics here: ain’t no Uzi’s made in Harlem. Not one of us in here owns a poppy field. This thing is bigger than Nino Brown. This is big business. This is the American way.”
New Jack City will thus appeal to fans of Tulsa King, not just because the central characters are similar but because it’s well-acted and well-directed. And audiences will appreciate the fact that it goes a step further by refusing to glorify crime. Once in a while, we need movies that remind us that even though the gangster life seems glamorous, nothing ever ends well for the parties involved.
‘New Jack City’ Was Born Out of an Early Script for ‘The Godfather Part III’
Set in the 1980s, New Jack City encompasses the surge of street entrepreneurial capitalism in its lawless version. Interestingly, it has a more direct connection to a movie where crime is very organized and stretches to the highest levels, including the Vatican. In his book, Drug Use for Grown-Ups: Chasing Liberty in the Land of Fear, psychologist and neuroscientist Carl Hart has a chat with the movie’s screenwriter, Thomas Lee Wright. According to Wright, the screenplay was originally written as The Godfather: Part III, and featured a character who sells the heroine rather than crack cocaine. It’s unclear if this character was Michael Corleone or a radical rival like Virgil “The Turk” Sollozzo from the first movie.
Wright reveals that after writing a treatment for Paramount, the execs loved the idea so much that they asked him to write the first draft. The actor reportedly based his story on interviews he had with residents of Little Italy in New York, along with the story of Nicky Barnes, the notorious black Harlem kingpin who modeled his business after the Cosa Nostra.
The Godfather: Part III’s story is nowhere near as exciting as that of New Jack City, so Paramount clearly dropped the ball here. The former is slow. In the latter, the pace is rapid. It could even be described as hectic. And the touch? Merely a glancing one. Until the denouement, nothing ever lingers on the screen for too long, although the director, Marion Van Peebles, packs plenty into the corners of scenes, and shapes even the most basic scenes decisively.
But was Francis Ford Coppola ever going to work with anyone else other than Mario Puzo? It would have been great to have a film that saw a competent lawman chasing after Michael Corleone, rather than another Gangster Vs. Gangster tale. It would also have been great to have a film that exposed the effects of the mafia’s activities on society. This way, The Godfather would now be considered a perfect trilogy rather than one with a weak final installment.
We still have New Jack City to forever be thankful for, though. You’ll hardly find a gangster picture where the movie star’s glow is more powerful than it is for Wesley Snipes here. Grinning widely between moments of amusement and fits of rage, his Nino is bolder, louder, and more charming than anyone else around. Then there’s Ice-T, who keeps his voice so low you’d wonder how he got into rapping, and stays super composed and logical — aware that it is the only way to compete with Snipes’ bravura. He sure knows how to play a cop. No wonder he has been in Law & Order for so long.
57 9.4/10 Tulsa King 10 stars 9 stars 8 stars 7 stars 6 stars 5 stars 4 stars 3 stars 2 stars 1 star Like Follow Followed TV-MA Crime Drama Release Date November 13, 2022 Network Paramount+ Showrunner Terence Winter Directors Allen Coulter, Benjamin Semanoff, David Semel, Guy Ferland, Joshua Marston, Kevin Dowling, Lodge Kerrigan, Jim McKay Writers Joseph Riccobene, David Flebotte, William Schmidt, Taylor Elmore, Tom Sierchio, Regina Corrado, Stephen Scaia 10 Images Close Cast See All Sylvester Stallone Dwight ‘The General’ Manfredi Martin Starr Lawrence ‘Bodhi’ Geigerman
Creator(s) Taylor Sheridan Powered by Expand Collapse
