SXSW 2025 Review: NEW JACK FURY, A Hilarious Lo-Fi Blaxploitation Side Scroller
Times are tough in New Jack City. The nefarious Styles Syndicate has a grip on the city, and by-the-book cop Dylan Gamble (Andre Hall) is determined to take down its leader, Silkwaan Styles (Page Kennedy). However, before he can, he is fired by his corrupt captain (and maybe for slapping him with an 18-inch dildo) for getting too close. A year later Dylan is still putting his life back together, and his beautiful girlfriend Tanisha (Ally Renee) is a bit part of his recovery. However, when the Styles Syndicate kidnaps her, Gamble has to cross the line from cop to vigilante to get her back in Lanfia Wal’s blisteringly funny lo-fi actioner, New Jack Fury.
With the help of small-time hood Hendrix Moon (Paul Wheeler) and moonwalking, smooth-talking, jheri-curled badass Leslie Kindall (Dean “Michael Trapson” Morrow), Gamble must strike deep into the heart of Styles’ territory to defeat his old nemesis. It’s a neon-lit, jheri-curl infused, adventure across New Jack City, and it’s funny as hell.
Writer/director Wal spent most of 2021 and 2022 working on Kenyan police procedural Crime & Justice, a very serious series inspire by real life events. New Jack Fury could not be further from that series, and we are blessed because of it. A willfully daft cross between the no-fi aesthetics of Manborg, the blaxploitation parody of Black Dynamite, and the side-scrolling adventures of iconic Sega classic Street of Rage, New Jack Fury packs its eighty-four-minute runtime with deliciously wack visual gags and hokey cliches.
Leading man Andre Hall brings an incredible earnestness as the strait-laced Dylan Gamble, grounding the audience in this ridiculous cartoon world. Shirt always tucked in neatly, Gamble simultaneously exudes naivete and supremely focused strength in his journey to get his sweet thing back from her captors. Gamble is flanked by Moon and Kindall, who are somehow both opposite from him and from each other, each providing nonstop laughs and endlessly quotable quips throughout the course of the film.
Shot entirely on green screen with sleazy ‘80s styled background of varying levels of visual fidelity dropped in behind the insane actions, New Jack Fury is committed to its no budget aesthetic in a way that is admirable. As Gamble and company trek through the city encountering Styles’ henchmen, drug addicts, and streetwalkers galore, it becomes clear that Wal is a student of his subject. Influenced as much by ‘70s blaxploitation as it is by ‘80s bowling alley arcade games, New Jack Fury never shies away at an opportunity to deliver a preposterous line reading or a good break dance fight, and thank God for that.
An ambitious flurry of chaotic fight scenes, outlandish costumes, and absurd dialogue delivered with impressive sincerity, New Jack Fury is one of the most raucously fun films of this year’s SXSW Film & TV Festival.
