By Odeisel

Once upon a time, Hollywood, and the film industry was in great peril. The political turmoil and protests of the 60s left America with little interest in fantasy. When the riots and marches and assassinations were over, they needed a way to bring people back to the box office.  Blaxsploitation movies were the key, using the concept of the struggle against “the man” as the central point of struggle, with outrageous characters playing on stereotypes and xenophobia.  The era made a ton of money and rescued Hollywood from the brink of disaster. It also left a lasting impression with the Dolemites and Shafts and Superflies etched in our memory. Black Dynamite is an attempt at both revisiting that era, and parodying some of its more ridiculous aspects.

Parody is a funny thing.  Its effectiveness often depends on the strength of the source material and how familiar the audience is with it.  It also depends on how far you are willing to go, in jest, to ensure that you walk the line between authenticity and mockery; not so authentic that you’re too close to the original, and not so mocking that the connection to the source is unrecognizable.

Dynamite, starring martial arts actor Michael Jai White, manages to successfully walk that line with Easter eggs that recall those halcyon days and over the top humor that allows you not to take it so seriously. The movie is so funny that even if you never saw 3 The Hard Way, you’d enjoy it simply for laughs.

All the elements are there, including the main jive turkey, Cream Corn played brilliantly by Tommy Davidson.  Cream Corn is an amalgamation of Huggy Bear (and just about every other Antonio Fargas character) and every “running scared” Negro in any 70s movie/TV show.  His character is as preposterous as it sounds.  In addition there are the hokey, balding policemen that are also prevalent in the films of that era.  Also parodied  is the background music and the scoring of the film, a hybrid of Curtis Mayfield like soul and other soul music from that era, capped off by the playing of “Dynamite…Dynamite” accompanied by a dramatic pose by White. Hysterical.

Black Dynamite also manages to fit in some good ole kung fu action. Unlike the cartoonish Rudy Ray Moore, Michael Jai White is actually a true martial arts master, having received his first black belt at age 13. As a result, his nunchaku skills are more than adequate when it comes to beating the daylights out of assailants who come at him one by one like the Bruce Lee movies.

Of course, no Blaxsploitation flick is complete without women, and Black Dynamite is no exception, taking the projection of hypersexual Black buck and running it to the extreme, with the title character having sex with three women at a time, as in one thrust for all three simultaneously, only to have the camera pan out to show that there are actually twice that many in the bed. Also involved is Black Dynamite’s main love interest who is a dead ringer for Foxy Brown herself, Pam Grier, although with decidedly fewer curves.

As for the actual story, it meanders by design, as most of those films do, with many minutes devoted to scenes that don’t move the movie forward at all.  This point is probably lost on viewers who lack the experience in those movies, but it’s clearly part of the joke. The movie goes from the ghetto, to people’s houses, to the secret origin of Roscoe’s Chicken & Waffles, to Monster Island, during an invasion.  There’s also a rally for a jive turkey politician, an orphanage where all the children are heroin addicts, a knock-down, and a drag out slugfest worthy of Peter Griffin and the big yellow chicken on “Family Guy.”

Unlike other attempted parodies of the genre, Black Dynamite is the only one that is written during the actual time period of reference. It is shot to mimic the visual feel of the movies it lampoons and all that funky but corny 70s goodness is alive and well, including wood paneling (yuck), zodiac chains (yikes), and everyone’s favorite fabric, polyester!

In all, Black Dynamite is not a movie for the faint of heart or the politically correct.  There are “bitches & hoes” as well as references to children on drugs, gratuitous-albeit-cartoonish violence, and racial references.  However, it’s all in jest and overtly over the top so that you don’t get it twisted.  You will laugh with familiarity as you recognize patterns and really laugh out loud at some of the jokes. There are a few predictable moments but nothing to upset the movement or the overall comedy of the film. If you are interested in letting your mind take the night off and you just want to laugh, you should go see Black Dynamite.  Just make sure you don’t bring the PC people.
Out of 5

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