Black Dynamite review

"Black Dynamite" is the kind of little known picture that I wish could've had a stronger distribution so people would know what it was. It's perhaps the best example of the things that made blaxploitation great and horrible in the 70's and early 80's. Granted not all blaxploitation was bad. "Shaft" is a great cop action picture and movies like "The Mack", "Coffi", "Foxy Brown" and hell even "Truck Turner" are fun as hell movies to watch. But as time went on Hollywood does what it does best, which is water things down to save money and release poorly made schlock for whoever was interested in watching it in the genre. "Black Dynamite" makes great fun of all this through it's intelligent satirical senses. Not since "Walk Hard" have I seen a parody movie made this well, this smart or this funny.

Written, co-produced and starring Michael Jai White ("Spawn", "Kill Bill" and "Why Did I Get Married?") he plays the archetype character of those films. He is Black Dynamite, a lover, a killer and all around badass that can solve anything and go anywhere; and does it in style. All the ass kicking and blood shed is kicked off by the murder of his drug addicted brother Jimmy by the mob. Dynamite wants revenge and to know why Jimmy was killed... but there's always more to the story. The film is also filled with characters who have hilarious names like Cream Corn (Tommy Davidson), Chocolate Giddy-Up (Cedric Yarbrough), Chicago Wind (Mykelti Williamson), among the many others. And the movie goes out there... way out there.

It really seems like this crew knew they're blaxploitation and better yet, knew how to use it well in the film; all of which was spearheaded by White. Michael Jai White has an interesting cinematic history. After "Spawn" one would think a good looking, charismatic action actor like himself would've blown up, but things didn't work out that way. So he mainly hit the straight-to-DVD circuit in addition to becoming a stunt coordinator and action director himself. Later he voiced the Green Lantern on "Justice League", had an awesome deleted scene in "Kill Bill" and popped up in "The Dark Knight". Hopefully with this as well as next years "Sucker Punch" by Zack Snyder, he can get to the star power he's deserves. In this he's hilarious and nails almost every joke perfectly. His fighting skills are still really damn good and it's funny seeing him try to look like he can't fight in some sequences.

Now as much as I really love this movie, a lot of people won't. Mainly because they won't really get it. In truth it kind of is one of those things where if you've seen Jim Brown movies or some of these other guys from back then, you'll get some of this stuff. Actually if you've seen movies from back then, you'll get some of this stuff. I'd actually love to see a sequel to this with some real movie money behind it so we can still get that humor, but with the action ramped up to another degree. I'm very eager to have this one in my DVD collection.