Crime boss Frank White (Christopher Walken) moves with ease in very diverse worlds. He is a take-charge leader with a rainbow coalition of drug dealers and hit men under his command. He is also a power broker in the higher echelons of Manhattan's social scene where he wins acclaim for funding a children's hospital suffering from budget cuts.

White's grand scheme to become the benevolent King of New York is shattered by uncooperative drug lords who don’t want to work with him and by three cops (Victor Argo, David Caruso, and Wesley Snipes) who are even willing to break the law to bring him down.

Writer Nicholas St. John and director Abel Ferrara have brought to the screen an alarming portrait of New York City as a war zone with drug lords slaughtering each other on the streets, cops who turn into vengeful vigilantes, and a power-hungry madman who wants to save the city have having his own way with it like he does with his attorney/lover (Janet Julian) King of New York proves the truth of police reporter Edna Buchanan's observation: "Crooks may be colorful, quotable, and even likeable but they aren't nice people."