When I first saw this movie, I didn't get it. Hey, I am not from the street, I have never done drugs and I usually stay clear from alcohol. What I did respond to was that you could make a movie, with almost no sympathetic characters, and still be mesmerised. This was something that you had never seen before. Even Goodfellas, one of my favorite movies, had a kind of sympathetic protagonist in Henry Hill. He may have been a gangster, but you could tell that he really wasn't as sociopathic as Nino Brown.
Even the cops aren't that great. The way they are portrayed was further explored in Tarantino's Resorvoir Dogs where the gangsters were also the protagonists. If you portrayed Ice-T as the straight-laced cop, the movie probably would have bombed badly. Ice-T by the way, does not really give an award-winning performance, but he brings a kind of authenticity that you need for a street movie like this. A total weird thing to me was Judd Nelson's part, who I was a big fan of. He is kind of just there, doesn't do anything, doesn't say that much. Very atypical from his earlier roles. This has got to be his greatest performance, even though I didn't see it that way at the time.
It's amazing the cast Mario Van Peebles got. Almost all of them were completely unknown at the time. I had seen Chris Rock on Beverly Hills Cop 2 in a bit part and Allen Payne on the Cosby Show, but had never heard of Vanessa Williams, Bill Nunn or for that matter Wesley Snipes. I later found out that he had been in quite a few movies before, also in one that I saw almost every day for like a month, Wildcats with Goldie Hawn.
What I remember most of this was the scene on the roof where Snipes confronts Allen Payne. What an amazing piece of acting. Can you believe that these guys used to do comedy, and not the gross-out kind. The tears down Snipes' cheek? Unbelievable.
The crack scenes are amazing. Not attractive in any way. The nude scenes, not a turn-on at all. Zombie crack addicts? Maybe a little overdone but still you get the message.
The closing monologue from Snipes is kind of reminiscent of the one from Goodfellas. It doesn't really justify the Nino Browns of the world, but you understand why he ended up the way he did. Both of the characters don't regret what they did, they are just sorry they were outsmarted, although Nino Brown is not really outsmarted at the end. The end scene was kind of a disappointment to me at the time, but in retrospect, how else could it have ended. There has to be a comeuppance of some kind. Remember, this is an anti-drug movie.
So congratulations Mr Van Peebles. You got people's attention and more.
Even the cops aren't that great. The way they are portrayed was further explored in Tarantino's Resorvoir Dogs where the gangsters were also the protagonists. If you portrayed Ice-T as the straight-laced cop, the movie probably would have bombed badly. Ice-T by the way, does not really give an award-winning performance, but he brings a kind of authenticity that you need for a street movie like this. A total weird thing to me was Judd Nelson's part, who I was a big fan of. He is kind of just there, doesn't do anything, doesn't say that much. Very atypical from his earlier roles. This has got to be his greatest performance, even though I didn't see it that way at the time.
It's amazing the cast Mario Van Peebles got. Almost all of them were completely unknown at the time. I had seen Chris Rock on Beverly Hills Cop 2 in a bit part and Allen Payne on the Cosby Show, but had never heard of Vanessa Williams, Bill Nunn or for that matter Wesley Snipes. I later found out that he had been in quite a few movies before, also in one that I saw almost every day for like a month, Wildcats with Goldie Hawn.
What I remember most of this was the scene on the roof where Snipes confronts Allen Payne. What an amazing piece of acting. Can you believe that these guys used to do comedy, and not the gross-out kind. The tears down Snipes' cheek? Unbelievable.
The crack scenes are amazing. Not attractive in any way. The nude scenes, not a turn-on at all. Zombie crack addicts? Maybe a little overdone but still you get the message.
The closing monologue from Snipes is kind of reminiscent of the one from Goodfellas. It doesn't really justify the Nino Browns of the world, but you understand why he ended up the way he did. Both of the characters don't regret what they did, they are just sorry they were outsmarted, although Nino Brown is not really outsmarted at the end. The end scene was kind of a disappointment to me at the time, but in retrospect, how else could it have ended. There has to be a comeuppance of some kind. Remember, this is an anti-drug movie.
So congratulations Mr Van Peebles. You got people's attention and more.