Listen up, all you jive turkeys. It’s time to get your ass to the nearest movie theater, pop down your Lincolns, crack open an Anaconda, and check out ‘Black Dynamite,’ the most badass exploitation movie to come out in years. It’s mean. It’s hard. It’s in your damn face. ‘Black Dynamite’ delivers all the goods in every department. Action. Comedy. Even a bit of political espionage. But don’t let the goofy nature of the movie’s more humorous side steer you clear. This is one, badass ride, and anyone who says otherwise is liable to get a nunchaku upside the cranium.
Okay, Blaxploitation voiceover aside, ‘Black Dynamite’ is a real treat, a balls-to-the-wall action comedy that incorporates everything that made films like ‘Super Fly’ and ‘Shaft’ so memorable. Loosely inspired by ‘Three the Hard Way,’ screenwriter and star Michael Jai White wanted to make a film that poked fun at as much as embraced all the elements of a quintessential Blaxploitation film. His narrative follows the title character, a former CIA operative whose brother, an undercover agent, has been gunned down. Fast kicks, fast dialogue, and fast comedy ensue with a serious verocity.
White and director Scott Sanders really know the genre they are working with. ‘Black Dynamite’ seems like an effortless collage of everything Blaxploitation, with a few, added elements thrown into the mix. The camera is completely unstable, sometimes even wandering off to the side. Sometimes the actors will look directly at the camera, read screenwriters notes out loud as if they were lines of dialogue, and even break character a time or two. At one point, a character slaps another, and Sanders makes it seem like the really was a connection. The actor who was slapped starts to call the other a dirty name, there’s a cut, and the shot is redone with a completely new actor in the role of the slapee. It’s such a minute moment in the overall film, but it’s one of the more memorable bits of fourth-wall comedy found in ‘Black Dynamite.’
The comedy in ‘Black Dynamite’ is all over the top, some jumping way ahead of other parts. We see the invention of chicken and waffles. We see an underground meeting of all the major pimps that includes stellar cameos by Arsenio Hall, Bokeem Woodbine, John Salley, and Cedric Yarbrough, whose Chocolate Giddy-up has probably one of the best character names in recent memory. The “ah-ha” moment when Black Dynamite and his crew figure out the conspiracy behind what is going on is as ludicrous as it is hysterical. Let’s just say it involves everything from M&Ms to Greek Gods to Little Richard. It’s really a scene to behold and words cannot do it justice.
The lead character is amazingly written, a juggernaut of martial arts who, evidently, everyone in the world knows about, even the President of the United States. Every time Jai White’s Black Dynamite enters a room, everyone is effected in various ways. Some run from him. Some begin quaking in their boots. One woman in particular can’t stop from tearing up. It’s so much fun to watch Jai White play the character he himself has written. You can just feel it oozing from the screen how much fun everyone had in making this film.
‘Black Dynamite’ isn’t all about the comedy, either. There is some really nice fight scenes in this film courtesy of Jai White’s martial arts background. Regardless of how you view these fight scenes, whether through the glasses of comedy or action, you will not be disappointed. They work so well either way. And, because of that, ‘Black Dynamite’ really comes out as a brilliant mesh of action and comedy, a la ‘Hot Fuzz.’ It really is to Blaxploitation films what ‘Hot Fuzz’ was to buddy cop movies.
This isn’t to say the film is perfect. There is a perfect end point to the film that takes plance on a locale known as Kung Fu Island. This should have been the finale of the movie, but it goes on from there. The very last action scene is unnecessary, and it really lowers the film’s standards a bit. I won’t go into detail what the last scene is about or who is revealed to be behind the whole conspiracy. I will, however, say that Jai White and Sanders’ film doesn’t fall into pure spoof until those last moments, and it is completely unneeded. The first 9/10 of the film worked perfectly, because it didn’t feel like the filmmakers behind it were trying to be funny. It truly felt like a serious action movie from the ’70s that just wasn’t working, and, because of that, the majority of this film is brilliant. It is in those last few moments that Jai White and Sanders feel like they are trying too hard, attempting to inject a brand of comedy that just isn’t necessary.
What more, though, can be said about Jai White’s performance here. The man is so talented as a screenwriter and as an actor, and his fight scenes are incredible to watch, as well. Funny when he needs to be, intimidating when he needs to be, and absolutely charming when he needs to be, Michael Jai White is everything in his performance here, and nothing is held back, nor should it have been.
‘Black Dynamite’ is a blast, a hilarious action comedy that delivers everything you would want from a film whose forefathers were the classic Blaxploitation films of the ’70s. Jai White and Sanders clearly have a lover for that genre, and they show it in the best way imaginable. They have crafted a picture perfect reenactment of one of those films, and they have made it their very own. When you have the chance, check out ‘Black Dynamite,’ sucker. Your ass just might depend on it.
