Black Dynamite

I caught this film at the Clinton Street Theater in Portland last night, it will remain their until tomorrow, but is certainly worth seeing on the small screen when released.  It was everything I thought it would be, and less, or more or less.

This is the movie that the remake of Shaft should have been.  It wisely doesn't try to update anything, it stays rooted in the seventies, a decade which, like blaxploitation flicks, is more about style than substance.  It doesn't matter what the plot is, what matters is how it's told. The film, while a loving homage to Blaxploitation flicks like Dolemite, and Black Gunn, it's actually more of a spoof than I thought it would be.  It opens with a bunch of kung fu.  Why Kung Fu?  Well the blaxploitation pride website states, "you will notice Kung Fu movies on this site as well. What does this have to do with Blaxploitation? Well, the more action packed Blaxploitation films did not just street fight. Oh no.....they thought they were Kung Fu Masters. Chinese martial art movies gave a sense of invincibility to these actors."  So there you go.  The fight is called for a close when Dynamite is called by his Auntie who gives him the standard plot of the dead brother on drugs, her best line 'If your momma was alive she'd role over in her grave.'   Cue the soul music.  You see, the protagonist must have a brother (or sister for Coffy) dead or dying from drugs. 

This is extremely funny.  The movie wisely plays up it's humor and doesn't take itself at all seriously, or purposefully takes itself too seriously, I'm not sure which.  It does an amazing job, my date was convinced it must have been made in the seventies.  It does such a good job spoofing cheaply made, and occasionally bad films it comes of as a cheaply made and occasionally bad film.  But that's part of its charm.  It actually reminded me of Pootie Tang, a little bit.  Though rooted in it's era it makes more sense to have ladies man that gives Bond a run for his money, and big Dirty Harry style guns.  Also Dynamite is a Vietnam vet, where he saw horrible things fighting the Chinamen (you read that right.) 

This simply wouldn't work in this era.  I'll glaze through the 'plot' here because I don't want to give away any more jokes, but I will return to this theme.  Umm, he vows to help this socially conscious lady clean up the streets and get the orphans of the smack, and eventually unites a posse to stop shipments of a malt liquor that contains an ingredient that's secretly a white conspiracy to...oh never mind, I tried.  I'll just say that if you've seen some of the flicks it's spoofing, it's really funny, and the film had me grinning ear to ear.  They are great films, especially Coffy, and Foxy Brown.  But, when his friend Cream Corn drops him off at the White House and calls it the 'Honky House' we know we're lovingly looking back on the past.

And that's great.  As I was laughing though, my mind began to wander to two things.  One:  Black Dynamite is really hot.  Two:   The film was missing a vital ingredient to the original genre.  The films were cool, but we must remember that the original films of this genre were extremely angry.  To view them is not just to be blown away by how cool they are, but to be exhilarated by the primal anger exhibited in these stories.  There's nothing in this film to rival the moment in Brotherhood of Death where the racist sheriff kills the non-racist sheriff, or Black Caesar where he forces the racist bad guy into blackface to sing Al Jolson while beating him to death, or the unsettling finale of Watermelon Man.  The rage just isn't there.  Maybe it's a sign of an era passed, maybe it can't capture the same feeling of that era.  And perhaps this is a sign of progress.

Still, I'd love a sequel with a Pam Grier type.  Hell, they could use Pam Grier.