Black Dynamite

Surfing on the left over popularity of the "Grindhouse" films comes a Blaxplotation film completely aware of what its doing. When I saw the preview for this I was certainly intrigued because it looked hilarious. Even though I was alone I will still laughing out loud.

The film opens with a drug deal going down, and the ring leader saying that someone among them is not who they appear to be, a man speaking very "preppy" gets shot for obviously being the rat. When the cops find his body they realize that its BD's brother (BD=Black Dynamite) So now he is out for blood, he is Kung Fu fighting ex-CIA operative that takes care of the ho's in the hood, and makes all the women scream. The story gets to the point of being ridiculous and they pack in as much as they can, and since the premise already was so out of this world when they get to the point of getting really insane I just let it go, its a parody anyway.

The acting was delightfully tacky and over done. They wisely chose to keep most of the cast unknowns or at least hid them under enough make up and Afro wigs that it took a few minutes to figure out who they were. The acting was spot on for a bad, cheaply made movie. There were scenes that the boom mic is visible, which is funny enough, but right at the last minute one of the characters will glance at it out of the corner of their eyes which is what made it really funny. It was the small facial ticks or the obviously fake punches that really sold it. Or things like if a crazy fight was going on they would focus on one guy reacting to the other fights so then they wouldn't have to spend money and time to do all the stuff they wouldn't have had the expertise to do anyway.

Its been a few days since I watched it so I'm trying to remember everything that I liked about it. It has also been a few weeks since Ive written a review and am rather rusty, so if anyone is reading this bear with me.

I was impressed with how much the film actually looked like it was made in the 70's, technically it was done very well, even though there were tons of "mistakes" purposeful as they might have been they made them look like accidents. The music is something to keep your ears open for, they do their own lyrics to the funk that us merely describing whats happening in the story.

Overall it was very funny, better than most others of this fare. With the "Grindhouse" films Tarantino and Rodriguez were to busy making themselves happy to make a truly funny and outrageous movie, as much as I liked them they were flawed. This kept it short, to the point like a shot of adrenaline and then let you go laughing. 8/10 stars.

Director: Scott Sanders

Starring: Michael Jai White, Salli Richardson-Whitfield