The Mighty Dollar in New Jack City

As the movie begins and the camera takes us through a tour of the New York skyline, voiceovers of journalists tell of the current news. It’s 1986 and the country is in disrepair. Poverty, murder, and drugs seem like unfixable elements throughout inner-city America. So, in just a few minutes, the story has told us the horrible world we’re about to experience. And once the helicopter camera brings us to the Queensboro bridge, we see this begin to act out. 

The Duh Duh man, a large henchman, dangles a guy in a suit by his feet off the bridge. Nino Brown, played perfectly by Wesley Snipes, opposes the man’s cries for help. The guy didn’t have Nino’s bread or drugs for him. And in that world of deadly drug dealers, there are no second chances, especially when it comes to money. They drop the guy. He falls to his death and we know who we are dealing with. Nino is a venomous drug lord who doesn’t mess around when it comes to his money.  

Even during the drug deal scene with undercover detective Scotty Appleton and wannabe-stick-up kid, Pookie is involved in a debate over an exchange of money for dope until Pookie runs away with the bag of cash. 

New Jack City 1991

Even Gee Money refers to others paying him as the IRS for nailing a basketball shot. He collects their cash before being called into the jeep with his buddies. Even his name, Gee Money, is a blatant reference to not just his character’s goal in life but to the story’s primary motif. Gee Money introduces crack to Nino and Nino immediately accuses him of his disloyalty to Nino’s current drug business. This is a theme we’ll see again later in the movie. 

During the Spotlite nightclub scene, Nino and his crew meet to discuss taking over the Carter, a large city project building. Nino gives a quick speech before he introduces his plans to sell crack. Nino wants to come off as righteous by justifying his drug dealing lifestyle by blaming the lack of money people can make on the economic times brought on by the Reagan administration. Under President Ronald Reagan, in the mid-80s when NEW JACK CITY took place, America was experiencing the trickle-down effect from Reaganomics. 

While middle to upper-class citizens sometimes benefited from this system, the lower class certainly felt its wrath. Nino’s reference to the Reagan Era and its capitalist policies is ironic in a way because Nino is a capitalist if I ever saw one. He even calls himself an entrepreneur later in the story. To Nino, the effects of America’s free market are bad, unless he can be part of that free market to make money for himself. Nino is seen watching SCARFACE twice in the film. The story of Tony Montana is very similar to Nino in that they came from the gutter and rose to great success by drug dealing. SCARFACE, just like NEW JACK CITY, is a blatant critique of American capitalism, too. 

When the messenger of the Italian mafia visits Nino to discuss the future of their partnerships, Nino doesn’t hide that he’s gone into business for himself. He cut the mafia out of their contracted deal. Nino makes a power play here against the mafia. He knows the amount of money he can make from the crack business and he doesn’t want to let anyone else in, even if that means going to war with the Italians. Keeping his 10% promise with them or perhaps even letting them in on the Carter operations would have been a nice gesture with the mafia. Keep the peace and make them money at the same time. That’s just good business. But Nino’s greedy. He wants it all for himself.  

Shortly after Carter was infiltrated, Gee Money found a new connection to begin another drug empire and maybe take over another New York project. He cuts a side deal in hopes of building his own drug business. He’s a disloyal friend and employee to Nino. Gee Money's disloyalty is foreshadowed during the jeep scene and comes to fruition as a result of Nino embarrassing Gee Money in the most famous scene in the movie.  

New Jack City 1991

Nino even hands out money to the neighborhood kids and the reverend, too. The old man reprimands Nino, making biblical references we’ll discuss later. But as devious as Nino is, he has no illusions of his predicament living in the poverty and crime-filled streets of New York. He knows that as successful and powerful as he is, he’ll never escape the drug dealer lifestyle. There’s no other option for him. He’s good at what he does and whatever obstacles are in his way, he’ll always return to pushing dope. Nino’s hopeless in that regard and has no problem taking other people with him. 

And after the big shootout when Scotty’s true identity is revealed, Nino meets Gee Money atop a building. They haven’t seen one another since they escaped. You would figure Nino would scold Gee Money for allowing undercover police in their crew. But Nino instead brings up that he knows Gee Money was making a side deal with Scotty. Nino considers loyalty to the drug game and to him personally in higher regard than the drug empire. It hurts Nino the most that his money was affected by Gee Money wanting more than what Nino was making with him.  

In the capitalist system, which Nino represents in the story, the betrayal by a business partner is an unforgivable offense. Gee Money showed this earlier on and it’s the main reason why Nino went to war with the mafia. There's no honor amongst thieves and it’s always business. It's never personal.