King of New York better than Scarface??
I was just wondering if you guys thought King of New York was better than Scarface...
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MovieChat Forums > King of New York (1991) Discussion > King of New York better than Scarface??
Yes, by a long shot.
Two Major Reasons:
1. It isn't over 3 hours long and
2. Abel Ferrara's directing is far stronger than DePalma's.
Plus Walken isn't playing a caricature- he's playing the role as straight as he's ever played one. While Pacino's is more memorable, Walken's performance is far stronger and more down to earth, making the movie just more...believable.
My mistake...four coffins.
My Film Site:http://www.strikeaposefilms.com/
Easy to compare the two because one of them, 'King', is a third rate film while 'Scarface' (with *one exception mentioned below) is a first rate film.
*DePalma drops the consistent 'could-have-happened'spine of his film at the end when he gets soft and silly. Man after man, with assault rifles, can't put a round or too into Scarface? Ferrara has virtually no scene that can be mistaken for actually happening in real life. But the one similarity in the two films is when the Snipes character takes multiple large caliber wounds to the chest, at close range, and doesn't fall and die.....is still able to struggle to kill the shooter.)
Memorable but by no means even a small listing of 'King's' utter ridiculousness? In no particular order: 1. Near the opening an experienced gangster carrying a briefcase of cash, with no pals in sight, naively goes into a lighted phone booth, unaware of his surroundings and is shot to death by several men 'hiding' nearby. 2. Rival gang PLUS the police coincidentally pick the same day, same night and same time to hit Frank White's gang. 3. Frank's limo drives by a funeral precisely at the moment the Caruso character (and how I wish this obnoxious actor could actually have been shot dead) bolts the funeral and has a hissy fit in his car. Shown previously as a street wise cop he is oblivious to the limo pulling up and is subsequently shot to death. Best part of this scene? The overhead wide shot showing all of the cops at the burial site rushing towards the road where the killing, DONE WITH A SILENCER, has taken place. Ferrara's tribute to the Keystone Kops? 4. The incipient racism of showing a huge group of minority gangsters in thrall to the white chief long in prison. Didn't any of these guys ever talk to each other or think to themselves that White's "good persona" marks him as a soft at the center kind of guy and ready for eliminating? [What might have made some folks think this was a "good" film was the exceptional cinematography of Bojan Bazelli; his lighting and camera moves were superb at creating the mood of a decadent New York.] Anyhow, these 4 comments are but a sampling of the utter ridiculousness of 'King'.
I can name at least three or four mistakes you have made.
1: Snipes didn't kill Fishburne when he was shot- Caruso did. Snipes was wearing a bullet proof Vest
2: "Several men hiding nearby" - how else would you surprise someone to kill them?
3: The "rival gang" WAS the police- they said they'd make it look like a gang hit, so they organized anyone who was willing to go through with it to get Frank. There was no rival gang in the club shoot out scene.
4: Frank was obviously waiting at the funeral. He had a very...perceptive air about him through the whole film. He was waiting for Caruso. He had tinted windows. A cemetary is a completely 100% public place. He could have been at Fishburne's funeral for all we know.
5: Best part of the scene? Sorry dude, but you're an idiot. That wasn't a silenced weapon he killed Caruso with, it was a double barreled shotgun. The only thing unreal about the scene was the lack of recoil, but its more of an implied blow, not a "hardened realism" one. As for Scarface- Pacino burnt his hand in real life holding the barrel of the M16 cause DePalma was too stupid to get a tech advisor in there and alert Pacino that the barrel was hot. You think a Cuban refugee, EX MILITARY, wouldn't know not to hold the barrel? Credible...doubt it dude.
6: They respected White for who he was. The fact that he's named White implies they have absolutely NO PROBLEM with him being one of "The Man" type of guys. The fact that he loved Black culture and loved black people is important and key to his character as well as the story- the story takes a humanistic philosophy, one trying to escape Prejudice. Just try listening to Frank's conversation with Roy Bishop towards the end, in his apartment. He didn't care what race you were- he wanted you to show respect to people. The drugs were different.
So there, I've dispelled all your highly-erroneous comments. Check any scene you like, and you'll see I'm right.
Also- Frank isn't "soft"- he's compassionate. You can't have a "mafia" without harmony. Hell, even Scarface got in trouble for being "soft." Isn't that why they sent those people after him? Cause he wouldn't blow up the kids?
And before you go saying I'm some obscenely obsessed freak- I've seen the movie about a total of 4 times in two years. I just actually pay attention when I watch a movie.
My mistake...four coffins.
My Film Site:http://www.strikeaposefilms.com/
1. Wrong scene? O.K. I'm talking about the night scene with 18 wheelers in a deserted downtrodden section of the city. One man shoots another man multiple times at close range with a large caliber weapon. The guy shot is wearing a vest? Fine. Then a realistic scene, like almost all in'Scarface', would have the guy down on the ground with the wind knocked out of him if not writhing in pain from a broken rib or too.
2. My point was that this guy was unacceptably out of it. Not concerned with where he was. In other words, not careful. Which makes the scene hard to believe.
3. Your seeing the film so many times has allowed you to "put together" what's not accessible to a single viewing. One of White's chief goons killed the body guard to set up the raid by the would-be drug dealer. How would the plainclothes cops and the assassins have known each other since they were hooded? It was dark and bullets were flying Not believable.
4.Are you serious about Frank waiting at the funeral? Frank was well known to the precinct that those cops were from and was so hated the cops were willing to consort with a killer gang and actually murder people in order to get him. He would take a chance like that? No way! You also forgot to "correct" my comment about the fantastic timing of having Caruso's character run to his car while Frank is "waiting".
5."Real life" incident with Pacino. I'm comparing the movies, not what happened off screen. I also mentioned, which is something you didn't read, that the end of 'Scarface' was not good because it turned Scarface into a superhuman, immune to bullets.
6.Soft versus hard. Totally a case of how one interprets each character. You believed it, I didn't. No right or wrong here. In 'Scarface', however there's a scene in the nightclub where he mentions that his wife's womb is barren. This suggests he might have wanted children. He is established as someone who loves his sister and has a mother he wants to care for. I don't remember anything that let's the viewer know why Frank wants to perform charitable works. But then again, none of the characters are delved into at any depth; it's an exploitation film after all.
7.Your final comment is so contradictory. ".....before you go saying I'm some obscenely obsessed freak....." followed by "I just actually pay attention when I watch a movie." Meaning I suppose that you actually paid attention all 4 times you saw "King". Since you selectively read my critique I would like to bring your attention to the fact that I said the film script was badly written by virtue of many, many scenes that were pure rubbish. I only listed a few.
8. Finally, you'll get the last word on this since I will not reply again to a person who calls someone he disagrees with 'an idiot'. This kind of emotional garbage tells me more about your personality than anything else you wrote about.
Most of your points contradict themselves.
Besides which, you proved you hadn't been paying attention by not trying to argue the sawed-off shotgun thing.
In a limo with tainted windows, it's hard to tell who it is. Since a graveyard is a public place, someone "waiting" wouldn't be seen as askew.
And if you think frank was afraid of the cops, you obviously don't understand gang relations and mafia connections. This film was practically funded by the Italian mafia, and is not exploitation. The final frame of the movie is one of the most beautiful things I've seen in film- his violence, his struggle, his grip on all this empire, OVER. No "God shot" like in Taxi Driver (a superior movie, but with a controversial ending) and no insane "Wow look what I can do mommy" super powers such as Scar Face.
In the end- Scar Face is exploitation if King of New York is. But Scar Face goes on for 3 hours and has only two or three interesting leads. It gets stretched out, banks on uber-violence (cause you know, a chainsaw is waaaay less violent than a sawed-off), and its main character. If they're not the exact same movie, well they certainly aren't too different. But King of New York is better directed, scripted, and acted.
PS- a movie is only good if it is worth more than one viewing. I'm not going to watch White Chicks more than once, for instance, but maybe the first two Scary Movies will lend more of an inclination.
If you haven't seen this movie more than once, don't go arguing if it's better than Scar Face. And 4 times in 2 years is pretty damned stretched, compared to me watching Predator about 4 times a month :-P
Finally, yes, I get the last word, hurray, but you'll still read this in your notification email, regardless. And if you reply to this, that only means you did. Have a nice day ^_^
My mistake...four coffins.
My Film Site:http://www.strikeaposefilms.com/
hey guys wat about copland?can we consider copland to be a gangster movie..?well i know the story is bout dirty cops but the way they portray the cops is kinda like gangsters.. right?
shareI haven't seen that. Neither the original or the Sylvester remake.
Sorta interested though.
My mistake...four coffins.
My Film Site:http://www.strikeaposefilms.com/
"hey guys wat about copland?can we consider copland to be a gangster movie..?"
No, Copland is a cop movie, but it is a great movie. One of the most underrated movies of the 90s.
They're both entertaining, but you have to be pretty naive to say Scarface is the better film. It's probably one of the campiest films ever produced.
shareIt's difficult. It are two different movies, both great!
Although somewhere King of New York looks like it's inspired by scareface in some points and atmosphrere. But I go for "King of New York". I was very impressed by Scarface though and watched it when i was 16 in 1983. But, through time and watching it several times I don't enjoy I that much anymore. It's to depressing imo... to real/sad/dark. I've seen it enough. King of New York is more watchable for me. It doesn't go under my skin like Scarface does.
While typing and reading my post, I guess Scarface is the better movie, but I like King of New York more... Walken is more a "dreamer".. The movie fit's me better.
Top movies of that genre:
1. Goodfellas
2. Scarface
3. The Godfather
4. Mean Streets
5. Pulp Fiction
6. Infernal Affairs
7. The Godfather Part 2
8. Leon
9. King of New York
10. Casino
11. Jackie Brown
12. A Bronx Tale
13. Reservoir Dogs
14. Heat
15. Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels
My silhouettes inside intensive care because I like to shadowbox.
Better than Scarface? Yup.
I certainly wouldn't call King of New York that much of a reduced budget film. It is nothing like a documentary and most of the time, is as stylized a film as DePalma's Scarface.
BTW, while we're on the subject; the best film of this genre is without question, The Godfather, Part II. The more I see it the more I notice how much better a film it is over the first one. Part I is truly brilliant but the superlative Part II just took it filmmaking to an entirely new art form. It is without peer.
Sullust
Better than Scarface? Yup. Loved Scarface but KONY had alot more "meat" to it. Also, I certainly wouldn't call King of New York that much of a reduced budget film. It is nothing like a documentary and most of the time, is as stylized a film as DePalma's Scarface. It wasn't the way it was filmed that made it gritty but where it was shot.
BTW, while we're on the subject; the best film of this genre is without question, The Godfather, Part II. The more I see it the more I notice how much better a film it is over the first one. Part I is truly brilliant but the superlative Part II took filmmaking to an entirely new art form. It is without peer.
Sullust
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No
shareI much prefer King of New York to Scarface. I think Al slices of the biggest piece of ham in the history of film and Chris keeps it very low key until the bursts of violence.
Scarface is also far too long and has some real bad performances from the supporting cast. It also seems a bit too overblown probably due to Al's performance.
The day glow aesthetic also annoys me a little.
King of New York makes a virtue of its brevity, contains little fat and has great supporting turns.
I think both are fantasies more than reality based one a fairytale that ends in tears and the other a nightmare that ends in peace.
The vampire parallels and corrupt cops also add a certain something to the atmos of KoNY for me. Its the classic:
"Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster".
Plus its got the bellboy from street trash in it.
KoNY wins hands down for me.
The King of NY is better than Scarface. For a good Al P. film ...Carlito's Way.
Heat, many think its a good film, ok, but I dont, IMO its just like Scarface far too much hype and does not deliver, but Scarface is a better film than Heat, just not the great that many say it is.
In the same way as I think the Godfather gets too many people saying its a great film just because they have heard so many others say the same thing.
Walken is a great actor. Even more so, he has done some of the best and most underrated films of any single actor.
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This, without a doubt. Scarface is entertaining, but so cartoonish.
shareking of new york is good, but scarface is great. scarface is over hyped an it did have a bigger budget an is more flashy but if you know abel's movies you know he isnt a class act director like palma. scarface is a better movie. no doubt about it, even tho personally i do prefer KoNY .. and walken was awesome, but so was pacino. you cant discuss taste.
so say goodbye to the bad guy