In 1990, Laurence Fishburne appeared in
King of New York as a volatile enforcer working for Christopher Walken’s drug lord and ran away with the movie, threatening to turn any scene into a bloodbath with his mere presence. (To paraphrase the late, great Eazy-E, his identity by itself causes violence.) In 1991, he played a contemplative father figure in
Boyz n the Hood trying to provide guidance to his son and prepare him for the grim realities of the streets. In 1992, he played an undercover cop in this movie, combining the best qualities of both performances. I cite the years because even though there were movies in between that I can’t attest to, this is a hell of a run for any actor. This is a man who swore off drink and drugs and became a cop after seeing his addict father killed during an armed robbery (in a scene that plays like a fairy tale or Christmas special gone wrong), and now has to go undercover and become the very things he hates as he’s enlisted to take down higher and higher up drug lords.
The
King of New York comparison is useful here, as both movies are about (to varying degrees) the futility of good intentions in the drug war, a dynamic presented in each from different sides of the law. In
King of New York, the motivations of most of the characters are transparently self-serving, and the movie takes relish in presenting the criminal element, albeit with a bit more restraint than earlier crime films in its vein (
Scarface,
Superfly). Here, the movie throws a fundamentally good man in the middle of the drug war, and is astute about how larger factors force him to compromise his integrity and make difficult decisions that put him at cross purposes with his purported aims. The movie does not do this by downplaying the very real harm posed by drugs, but forcing him to do worse and worse things to keep his cover. The mix of volatility and contemplation Fishburne brings to the role, as well as the credible sense of danger he finds himself in, make this play out compellingly. There’s little glamour in this depiction of crime (although the duds that Fishburne buys to blend in are surprisingly tasteful; appropriate as he relishes this life less than the usual criminal protagonist), and to the extent to which this leans into Blaxploitation by having Fishburne do some ice cold shit, it’s directly tied to his moral destruction.
Fishburne is joined by Jeff Goldblum, whose usual jittery demeanour makes him an affable and easily watchable in most things he appears in, but here is subverted to complement his deep-seated insecurity and capacity for violence. These two join forces to ascend the criminal ranks or take them down (depending on which angle you look from) in a live wire dynamic, as Fishburne grows uneasy from Goldblum’s unpredictability and racial fetishization. The racial dynamics are unavoidable in this movie, from the way it’s wielded as a cudgel over the black Fishburne and the Jewish Goldblum by Gregory Sierra, a mob boss who resembles a more ruthless Groucho Marx, to the endless slurs spouted by Charles Martin Smith, the careerist DEA agent who jerks Fishburne around. Most people are likely familiar with Smith from
American Graffiti or as the director of family friendly fare like
Air Bud, and it’s a shock to hear the guy behind the canine basketball movie using this kind of language. Their scenes take place almost in a vacuum, in an abstracted meeting room that’s a sharp contrast with the hyperreality of the street scenes, which provides some insight into how he views the drug war. On the other end of the spectrum, you get Clarence Williams III as a thoughtful but imperfect police officer who appeals to Fishburne’s better nature and tries to use his own Christian beliefs to navigate these morally murky waters. It’s a far cry from his frightening performance as one of the villains in
52 Pick-Up.
This really is a masterclass in casting, which makes some sense as it’s directed by Bill Duke. Duke is an actor who gets a lot out of doing seemingly very little (notice the way he shaves during a lull in the action in
Predator, or the way he explains the one thing he doesn’t understand in
The Limey), and it seems that talent extends to his direction of other actors. But this is also a consistently tense crime thriller, captured in moody nocturnal cinematography courtesy of Bojan Bazelli and frenetic editorial choices that seem to both heighten the tension but undercut any “enjoyment” we might get from these characters or this milieu.
So yeah, this owns.
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