King of New York

Dominic Simard-Jean

The gangster genre was brought to its greatest highs of filmmaking extravaganza by a crazed up Abel Ferrara who made a movie capable of disturbing anybody's moral compass. The cinematography, the violence and the performances are all perfectly executed, but it's Walken's Frank White, the ultimate gangster paradox, the image of the nigths of NYC, that will stay in your mind long after the end of this film.

Bobowood

Christopher Walken is simply amazing. Such an intense performance.

Kays Vanderest

This is the most exceptionally powerful gangster film I have ever experienced. Cinematic splendor.

Jake Cole

A literal vision of the drug war, where moral codes have long ago gnarled and atrophied and all that is left is dance, blood, coke and piss. The title is misleading, though; the biggest ambition anyone has in this film is to take someone else down before they fall.

El Biffo

3.4* The shootout scenes are chaotic and tedious and the party scenes are a drag. I like the visual aesthetic tho, and Christopher Walken dancing.

Nicholas Gregory

King of New York is largely myopic in narrative, and its themes and characterization are narrow in their scant sociological insight. But it's fun due to the amount of stylish action (the rain-soaked car chase shootout is aces.) Like Bad Lieutenant, it doesn't stretch much beyond its mood and central idea, and like Goodfellas (also 1990) it's largely just a non-dramatized glamorization of criminality.

Bilouaustria

Blue light and nocturnal abstractions. This is not the common gangster film, for sure. More of a variation, the kind Michael Mann would fancy, with some of the formal audacity from the eighties that was in play in «Thief» and later in «Manhunter». Ferrara is more fascinated with violence, which can be over the top here, but Christopher Walken’s unreal performance as a capitalist-vampire-criminal is one for the ages.

Eric Rucker

Fuck you, MUBI, that’s not a film. Whoever directed it is not an auteur, just a macho misogynist pig. (No such thing as an auteur anyhow.) Cross over to the world of art where it intersects with humanism. Move the world forward. Stylized violence does not equal style, and “style” is a big steaming pile like “auteurism.” Hand in your badge, fanboy, no more programming for you. And what’s with the illiterate subtitles?