This is the story of 1970s African-American action legend Black Dynamite. The Man killed his brother, pumped heroin into local orphanages, and flooded the ghetto with adulterated malt liquor. Black Dynamite was the one hero willing to fight The Man all the way from the blood-soaked city streets to the hallowed halls of the Honky House.. Black Dynamite is the greatest African-American action star of the 1970s. When his only brother is killed by The Man it's up to him to find justice. Black Dynamite is one of the best films of 2009. A hilarious send up of the blaxploitation films' of the 1970's, it surpasses the quality of its 1980s contemporary I'm Gonna Git You Sucka and is on par with the Naked Gun and Airplane! parodies from that decade. You'll be talking about this movie for days and reciting the one-liners verbatim. This is one of the most fun movies I've had the pleasure to watch in a long time. Michael Jai White is Black Dynamite, a former government agent now neighborhood enforcer out for revenge when finds out his brother has been killed by The Man. That's the premise of this movie and that's all you really need to know. On his quest for revenge as he cleans up the streets there are tons of jokes based on the gaffes you'll be talking about for weeks on end. It's a conspiracy that leads all the way up to the White House and the President in a Kung-Fu climax that has to be seen to believed. Black Dynamite was one of the best movies of 2009. Forget that Avatar nonsense, THIS movie should have been nominated for some Oscars! Everything from the set design to the music is the highest quality. For a film costing about $3 million dollars the set design, costumes and cinematography and production values had the feel of a big-budget period film, and the quality was on the screen in every frame. My only complaint about this fantiastic film is there wasn't enough Salli Richardson in it! In their portrayal of the bad acting of those 1970s flicks, the entire cast gives a great performance with several standouts. Michael Jai White is awesome as Black Dynamite. This is gonna be his signature role; he takes his craft to the next level in this one. Tommy Davidson is hilarious as Cream Corn. Byron Minns steals scenes as Bullhorn. Minns feels like he was channeling the spirit of the late Rudy Ray Moore, in some frames it was like Dolemite was speaking through him! His rhymes and his one-liners are unforgettable. Kym Whitley is hilarious as Honey Bee; she channels the late Lady Reed in her portrayal of the character. Nicole Ari Parker disappears into her character and Salli Richardson is a delight to watch as Gloria. Director Scott Sanders crafts a beautiful film that looks like it could have come from the 1970's. Cinematically, there's no distinction between this 2009 film and the classic blaxploitation movies that came from the late Samuel Z Arkoff's American Interantional pictures in the 1970's. Everything here is so period accurate it's not funny! White, Sanders and Minns must have sat down and meticulously studied every blaxploitation film from the 1970's frame-by-frame. I've watched dozens of Blaxploitation films from Dolemite to Foxy Brown to Black Samurai, and all the gags the in-jokes made about the genre and this film are right on the money. Black Dynamite is a Shawn James Five Star Essential Video. I highly recommend you pick this one up NOW! Taking scenes from current films and goofing them up, parody flicks come off as lazy and, in the long run, forgettable. That's not the case with "Black Dynamite", a slam-bam spoof of the blaxploitation films of the 1970s, that stand on its' own two feet. Holy Mel Brooks and Quentin Tarantino (Both men should watch this film)! <br/><br/>Big, black, sexy,dangerous and sometimes ludicrous is the title hero (Michael Jai White of, "Spawn", The Dark Knight" and an edited scene from "Kill Bill"), an ex-CIA operative who's on the road of revenge when his kid brother's killed for being an undercover snitch (and speaking proper English!). <br/><br/>The crime leads to plots involving drug-addicted orphans (Huh?) and malt liquor that emasculates African-American men (What the?!). Through it all, BD encounters mobsters, dealers, pimps, hustlers, whores, Black Power revolutionaries, corrupt CIA operatives, kung fu assassins and. . . good God. . . a nunchuks-wielding Richard Nixon (Now, why didn't Zack Snyder give his Nixon in "Watchmen" some mad kung fu skills?)! <br/><br/>Unlike previous spoofs of the genre ("I'm Gonna Get You, Sucka!" ,"Undercover Brother" and "Pootie Tang"), "BD" takes place in the 1970s, not only embracing the funky fashions, ambiance and lingo, but also the embarrassing gaffes, miscues and continuity errors that the politically minded, yet Ed Wood-like auteurs blatantly sanctioned in their cine-opuses. A character hits his head against the boom mike. A stuntman's quickly replaced within the reel (!) after getting hit accidentally. Wild, shaking close-ups are aplenty. Exposition is told in song. Supporting players appear out of nowhere! For cine-sticklers, it's a parade of goofs.<br/><br/>A crowd pleaser at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, "BD" is a laugh riot and a half, thanks to the gonzo ace script by White (possibly the next Leslie Nielsen), Byron Minns (who plays a rhyming night club owner, a la the late comic Rudy Ray "Dolemite" Moore, here) and Scott Sanders ("Thick as Thieves" which features White), the film's helmer, who expertly winks at the audience as he stands behind the camera.<br/><br/>Characters actors are dead-on camp: Salli Richardson-Whithead ("Posse", the TV show, "Eureka") is a Black Power revolution dame, who falls for the hero; Mike Starr ("Goodfellas", "Jersey Girl") is a mobster flanked by bikini-clad babes; Phil Morris ("Seinfeld", "The Secret Saturdays") is a revolutionary capo; Mykleti T. Williamson ("Forrest Gump", "Lucky Number Slevin ") is a mean street hustler, comics Arsenio Hall and Cedric Yarborough are tacky clothed pimps; Tommy Davidson ("In Living Color") is a politically incorrect gay man; Roger Yuan (the film's co-stunt choreographer, "Shanghai Noon") as a fiendish kung fu villain and Nicole Sullivan ("Rita Rocks, "The Secret Saturdays") is Tricky Dick's better half, Pat Nixon. Yeah. . .she falls for BD too.<br/><br/>With a $3 million budget, "BD"'s free to be a true parody, needing not to resort to cheap gags. Some might see the flick as unneeded but the animosity towards our current President (Hint! Hint) disproves that. Go see "Black Dynamite". . .unless you're some super, jive-ass sucka! An enjoyable celebratory ode to a fiercely entertaining counterculture-inspired genre.
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295 weeks ago