That being said, even if you aren't steeped in Blaxploitation history or just happen to really enjoy I'm Gonna Git You Sucka, you're going to really enjoy Black Dynamite. It's a different kind of parody than the Wayans / Zucker model of the mid-to-late 80s, mostly because of how hard it works to feel like a product of the era.
While this is going to sound strange, I’m going to draw a comparison to The House of the Devil, because both films manage to feel evocative of their respective time frames (Black Dynamite of the early-to-mid-seventies and The House of the Devil to the very early eighties) with a combination of camerawork, film stock, and set design. As with The House of the Devil, Black Dynamite could fool people into thinking they aren’t watching a parody… well, I won’t go that far. Stylistically, maybe, but if you’re paying attention to the story (and you’ve ever seen I’m Gonna Git You Sucka), then it’d be hard to mistake this for the genuine article.
As stories go, Black Dynamite has… a bit going on. Black Dynamite (Michael Jai White)’s brother Jimmy is gunned down by, um… drug dealers? Mobsters? The man?, causing the Cool Brother Who’s Out of Sight to put aside his Kung Fu practicing and Love Making in order to clean up the streets and get revenge. He’s helped out by “The Man” (in this instance, the CIA, with whom he served after being left behind in
Here’s where it gets a little more complicated, because Black Dynamite does manage to fit almost every cliché into one film: Black Dynamite teams up with the local Black Panther party to help overthrow the corrupt Congressman Monroe James, as well as local hood Chicago Wind (Mykelti Williamson). Then things get even more complicated as a vast conspiracy involving Anaconda Malt Liquor, The Fiendish Dr. Wu, and the President of the
The level to which Black Dynamite is a parody (or just satire) of the genre is up to you. See, from what I do know of most Blaxploitation films, they are pretty ridiculous. Many of them were made on the cheap, so camera work can be a little shoddy, plots can go all over the place, and characters are painted in the broadest strokes possible. For example, Shaft is such a badass that most of the plot doesn’t need to tie together; he can pretty much wander around starting shit and seducing ladies at a moment’s notice. Alternately, it’s pretty hard not to say that Bullhorn is directly modeled after Rudy Ray Moore.
So when Black Dynamite abruptly shifts from being a “getting the drugs out of the community” to a showdown on “Kung Fu Island”, the level of parody is up for debate. Of course, when you’re watching a movie with a character named “The Fiendish Dr. Wu”, a “master of Kung Fu Treachery,” don’t take things too seriously. By the time that Black Dynamite switches directions for the fourth of fifth time (somewhere around the introduction of the orphanage), it’s easier to just enjoy the ride.
Helping to ease your enjoyment is Michael Jai White as Black Dynamite. I knew he was a charismatic guy from Exit Wounds, and that he was a martial arts master (okay, from the same movie, but also Universal Soldier). I guess that he might have been funny in Jerry Springer: Ringmaster, but honestly I don’t remember because of how bad that movie was. Here, however, he’s the ultimate package.
Jai White understands how inherently silly the genre is, and finds the balance between underplayed Richard Roundtree and over the top Fred Williamson. Even his kung fu, which is solid, is punctuated with ridiculous Bruce Lee-esque squeals and mannerisms. If you’ve seen the “Damoe” deleted scene from Kill Bill part 2, where Jai White has an outlandishly bad Australian accent, then you’ll have some idea of how funny he can be while kicking ass. But he’s also unmistakably a Bad Ass Mo-Fo in Black Dynamite. You don’t doubt that he could, say, defeat a nun chuck wielding Richard Nixon (spoiler).
While the targets are wide ranging and the acting is, at times, deliberately over the top, my favorite moments are the little ones. For example, early in the movie Black Dynamite is visiting Honey Bee (Kym Whitely) and sits down at his desk. The camera, at a low angle, swings up awkwardly as Jai White stands up, revealing the boom microphone at the top of the frame. This, as Adam was quick to remind me, is directly lifted from Dolemite, but what makes it even funnier is that Jai White quickly looks up at the boom mic not once but twice.
Other little things, like the fact that stock footage never seems to match the action sequences (particularly at the end of the Chicago Wind chase), awkward cuts to mask stunt accidents, or delaying a split-screen because Black Dynamite is having trouble hanging up the phone really sold me on the movie. In fact, I'm a little fuzzy on why people don't like Black Dynamite. A handful of reviews I saw indicated the film was all style and no substance, which I don't totally agree with.
Admittedly, the story is all over the map, but there is an actual through line from beginning to end. The unnecessarily over-complicated explanation of the Anaconda Malt Liquor conspiracy should make that clear. To be fair, the sequence with the pimps (which includes cameos by Bokeem Woodbine, Cedric Yarbrough, Miguel Nunez, Brian McKnight, and Arsenio Hall) doesn’t really go anywhere, but you do get to hear the following exchange:
Black Dynamite – “I’m declaring war on anyone who sells drugs to the community!”
Chocolate Giddy-Up – “But Black Dynamite, I sell drugs to the community!”
I highly recommend Black Dynamite to anybody sick of seeing crap like Epic Movie or Recent Movie 3 or whatever they pass themselves off as these days. While you don’t need to be a scholar on Blaxploitation films, it wouldn’t hurt your appreciation of what director / writer Scott Sanders and co-writers Michael Jai White and Byron Minns have accomplished. In fact, it may send you in the direction of the films Black Dynamite is satirizing. I, for one, am going to try to locate Black Belt Jones and see how much I missed in the first viewing of Black Dynamite.
---
Just for good measure, a sampling of other great lines from the movie:
“Your knowledge of scientific biological transmogrification is only outmatched by your zest for kung-fu treachery!”
“Take your filthy black hands off the presidential dinnerware, you moon-cricket!”
“First Lady, I'm sorry I pimp slapped you into that china cabinet.”
“You diabolical dick shrinkin' mother fuckers!”
“Now Aunt Billy, how many times have I told you not to call here and interrupt my Kung Fu!”
No comments:
Post a Comment