King of New York (1990)

King of New York is conceivably the most hilarious I've seen Christopher Walken since True Romance (1993), and I mean that as a serious compliment. He plays Frank White, a psychotic drug lord recently released from prison. I read a plot synopsis that suggested that Frank wanted to give some of his drug money to the poor, but no matter how hard he tried, it was impossible to leave the bloodshed behind him. Whilst Frank does indeed try to give money to keep an important city hospital open, there is no effort whatsoever to do away with his psychopathic streak. The violence in King Of New York is frequent and thrilling, and Abel Ferrara sets the film against an aggressive grey/blue colour palette, in what is his best film that I've seen to date. There's plenty of excellent support alongside Walken, and the show is almost stolen from him by a hysterical Laurence Fishburne, a performance which is the polar opposite of his calm and cool portrayal of Morpheus in The Matrix (1999). As the mayhem and backstabbing mounts in an increasingly churlish fashion, it seems impossible that King Of New York is going to end well for anyone, but thankfully, whether that ends up being the case or not, it doesn't include the viewer. It's an absolute blast. 8.1/10