Black Dynamite
Michael Jai White, Arsenio Hall, Tommy Davidson
Directed by Scott Sanders
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment 2010
90 minutes
Black Dynamite is a brilliant comedy DVD spoof of and salute to the blaxsploitation action movies of the early seventies. I would be curious to see how an audience not familiar with movies like Willie Dynamite (my all-time favorite), Shaft, or Foxy Brown reacts to a spoof of something they are not familiar with. Black Dynamite is so true to its roots it is sometimes hard to tell if it is a comedy or a genuine blacksploitation big afro movie: it is that “right on”, gratuitous nudity included.
“Da man” is flooding the ghetto streets and Black orphanages with some very powerful drugs. The bad guys also cause the death of people close to Black Dynamite, lover and former CIA agent. Black Dynamite vows to avenge their deaths. This of course means lots of shooting, kung fun scenes, and jive talk.
This comedy works because it is a glitch-perfect clone of the movies it is spoofing. You need a lot of talent to have purposefully bad writing and bad acting and pull it off. This is what writer and actor Michael Jai White pulls off here. Director Scott Sanders also knows his blaxploitation movies and it shows. Even the funk music is perfect.
This movie is simply a hoot.
Black Dynamite is a comedy you watch a few times just to get all the gags and goofs inserted on purpose like the visible boom mic, the bad guy actor changed in the middle of the fight scene, and other visual oddities. If you really, really know your blaxploitation movie you can also play find the reference.
Special features on the Black Dynamite DVD include a decent commentary track, deleted scenes and other stuff.
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