King of New York
Frank White (Christopher Walken), a wealthy and powerful drug lord, is released from Sing Sing prison on parole after serving time for drug dealing charges. He is picked up by a private limousine where his two female bodyguards/mistresses are inside. They are a petite young black woman named Raye (Theresa Randle) and a tall blond former model named Melanie (Carrie Nygren). Together, they ride into Manhattan over the Queensboro Bridge. Frank insists that they first drive through his old neighborhood where he grew up in the Lower East Side and he notes just how dilapidated and depressing it now looks.Meanwhile, Emilio El Zapa (Freddy Howard), a Colombian drug dealer, enters a telephone booth outside his fancy row house to make a call, where he is almost immediately gunned-down by three black assailants. As the hit men leave, one of them drops a newspaper headline onto Zapa's lap which announces Frank White's release.Across town in a hotel near the JFK International Airport, Zapa's partner, King Tito (Ernest Abuba), sits in a room with Jimmy Jump (Laurence Fishburne) and Test Tube (Steve Buscemi), a pair of gangsters who are negotiating the purchase of several kilograms of cocaine. Finally, the two agree to pay Tito $100,000 up front, plus 10% of the street value (which includes transportation costs, Tito quips). When Tito opens the suitcase ostensibly containing the money, however, he discovers that it is full of.... tampons. When he exclaims if this is a joke, Jimmy says that it isn't and replies; "they're for the bullet holes, bitch!". Jimmy and Test Tube then draw pistols, shoot Tito and all his bodyguards to death, and then steal the cocaine.A few hours later, in the presidential suite at the Plaza Hotel, Frank steps out of the shower to discover that Jimmy Jump, Test Tube, and the three phone booth killers are waiting for him. They are revealed to be the core members of his gang, and they welcome him home with a gift of champagne and Zapa's briefcase full of money. After an exchange of pleasantries, Frank leaves with Raye and Melanie to meet with two of his many lawyers, Joey Dalesio (Paul Calderon) and Jennifer (Janet Julian), for dinner at a fancy local restaurant. After the dinner, during which Frank proclaims himself "reformed", and expresses his desire to be elected mayor, he asks Dalesio to set up a meeting with Mafia boss Arty Clay (Frank Gio). Frank and Jennifer leave to take a ride on the subway, where it is revealed that she is another one of his many mistresses. Upon being confronted by three muggers on the subway train (led by Harold Perrineau), Frank first brandishes his gun, then gives them a wad of money, telling them to ask for him at the Plaza Hotel if they want work.In Little Italy, Dalesio arrives and attempts to set up Frank's meeting with Arty Clay, but the crime lord refuses to accept. Referring to Frank as a "nigger-lover", Clay proceeds to urinate on Dalesio's shoes, and tells him that it's a message for his boss. Upon hearing of this, Frank, Jump, and several other members of the gang arrive at Clay's social club the following evening, where Frank tells Clay that he wants a percentage of all Clay's profits. When Clay refuses and insults him to his face, Frank draws his gun and empties it into the racist mafioso. As he makes his way out, Frank announces to Clay's henchmen that if they don't want to be continually mistreated as they currently are, they can all find employment at the Plaza. Moments later, a few of Clay's goons (including Robert LaSardo) follow Frank out of the door.The next night, after watching an avant-garde play, Frank confronts a city councilman about the city's failure to continue the funding of a hospital in a poverty-stricken area of the South Bronx. When the councilman explains that there wasn't enough money in the budget, Frank vows to fund the facility himself. Moments later, he is confronted by Detective Roy Bishop (Victor Argo) and his right-hand men, Dennis Gilley (David Caruso) and Thomas Flanigan (Wesley Snipes), three members of the NYPD's narcotics squad, who tell him that they are taking him to police headquarters for questioning. Instead, the three drive him to an abandoned lot, where they show him the dead body of Emilio El Zapa in the trunk of their car. When Frank refuses to confess to the crime, Gilley and Flanigan beat him up. The cops then drive off, leaving Frank to find his own way home.Apparently unfazed by Bishop's warnings, Frank sends Dalesio to Chinatown to make contact with Larry Wong (Joey Chin), a local Triad gang leader who possesses 100 kilograms of cocaine worth over $15 million on the street. Larry, however, is leery of dealing with Frank, especially after the killing of Arty Clay. He demands that Frank meet him alone on neutral ground to discuss the deal. As the meeting is being scheduled, however, Jimmy Jump and several of Frank's top lieutenants are arrested by Gilley and Flanigan, who reveal that one of King Tito's bodyguards is still alive and willing to testify against them.Meeting at the very hospital he is intent on saving, Frank attempts to hammer out a deal with Larry. Larry and his Triad henchmen demand $3 million up front and another $500,000 after the drugs are sold. But Frank counters that with a counter-offer. He explains that since the drugs are worth over five times that amount on the street, Frank suggests that the two team up, with Larry providing the drugs and Frank providing the dealers, and then split the profits evenly. When Frank insists that part of the profits be directed into funding the hospital, Larry turns him down and demands that Frank decide immediately whether he want to buy the drugs for $3.5 million or not at all. Frank declines and the two part ways.Returning to the Plaza Hotel, Frank learns of Jimmy Jump's arrest and orders his lawyers to arrange their release, a process that eventually entails paying $1 million in bail for each man. Frank sends his limousine to the police station to pick up Jimmy and his men, and they head directly to Chinatown, where they massacre Larry Wong and his entire gang in a quick shootout. They then find the stockpiles of Larry Wong's cocaine in large barrels marked for MSG in a basement storage.With the money gained from selling the Triad's cocaine, Frank sets up a fundraiser, hosted by singer Freddie Jackson, to raise even more money for the hospital. Witnessing this latest outrage on the TV of a nearby bar, Gilley, Flanigan, and several like-minded officers resolve to use extrajudicial means to get rid of Frank, despite Bishop's objections. Posing as drug dealers, they bribe Joey Dalesio into leading them to a small nightclub in nearby Brooklyn where Frank and most of his men are partying (among them are the three subway muggers). Catching the criminals unaware, the hit squad bursts in with guns blazing. In a huge gun battle, the dirty cops succeed in slaying both of Frank's girlfriends Raye and Melanie, as well as most of his gang. Enraged when he sees the masked assailants killing his fellow gang members while some are laying wounded on the floor, Jimmy Jump is the only one who puts up a fight, gunning down a few of the masked assailants before running out the back door where he subdues one of them and recognizes him as a cop.Fleeing in their limousine in a long car chase over the Queensboro Bridge, Frank and Jimmy trade shots with the police, killing all of them except for Gilley and Flanigan. After momentarily giving their pursuers the slip when their limo crashes into an off-ramp off the bridge, Frank and Jimmy split up, with the nearly-maniacal Jimmy staying behind to deal with the two pursing cops. Sneaking up on Flanigan, Jimmy shoots him five times in the chest, puncturing his ballistic vest with armor-piercing bullets. Seeing this, Gilley shoots Jimmy several times in the chest and, after pausing to attempt CPR on his ill-fated partner, kills his assailant with a single shot to the head.Reeling from the unexpected assault and the loss of his friend and most of his gang, Frank responds with an all-out narcoterrorism against the police. A few days after the murders, as Gilley is leaving Flanigan's funeral, Frank kills him personally with a single shotgun blast to the head in a drive-by shooting.That night, after watching his surviving henchmen kill Dalesio for ratting out to the cops, Frank shows up at Roy Bishop's apartment, telling him that he has placed a $250,000 bounty on every detective involved on the case, including Bishop. Still holding Bishop at gunpoint, Frank explains that he killed Tito, Larry, Arty Clay, Zapa and their affiliates simply because he disapproved of their business practices, which included the exploitation of immigrants and child prostitution. When Bishop asks: "Did you really think you could get away with killing all these people?" Frank replies with the most often-quoted line of the film: "I never killed anyone who didn't deserve it."His business seemingly concluded, Frank forces Bishop to handcuff himself to a chair before taking his leave with nothing more to prove. As Frank escapes down to the subway, Bishop uses a gun from a nearby drawer to free himself and gives chase. Following Frank into a subway car, Bishop corners him, causing Frank to take a woman hostage. During the ensuing standoff, Frank fires on Bishop, killing him, but not before the policeman is able to fire off one last shot himself. Escaping from the train car and into a nearby taxi in Times Square, Frank looks down to see that he has been hit. As police officers surround the car, Frank closes his eyes and dies. The last image of the film is his gun falling limply to his side, while the police, unaware of his death, continue to keep the taxi cab surrounded, and warily begin to move in.
comedy, neo noir, murder, violence, cult, revenge