One, Two...

Three, The Hard Way.

Ok, you’ve read about Black Belt Jones, and you have researched Blaxploitation – good. You will need this knowledge to understand the pure genius and awesomeness of this film.

Before I continue I have something startling to admit – I have never seen any of the original Shaft films. I have only seen Shaft 2000 (which is not a remake btw, because the original Shaft – Richard Roundtree appears in it in character.) So anyone out there (does anybody read this blog?) who tells me I suck for saying this is the best blaxploitation film I have seen should know I have not seen Shaft….cool?

The plot is amazing! A white supremacist group has created a liquid that when mixed with water will kill African Americans. The liquid is harmless to all other races! How they created this liquid is unknown, but they did a lot of experiments on a lot of brothers to find the formula. One such victim escapes and warns his friend JIM BROWN (from Mars Attacks – the boxer people come on!) Who then assembles the greatest team since Superman formed the Justice League. He gets JIM KELLY (see Black Belt Jones and BUY Enter the Dragon) and FRED WILLIAMSON (the Hammer bitch – remember my review of Warriors from the Wasteland and my 2 Cents on Fred?).

They all have a lot to do in this film, they are not just cameo appearances. These guys team up and fight, then split up and fight, then re-team again and fight some more! Each guy takes a city, 3 cities (LA, Washington, and Detroit) and there’s 3 of them – so its THREE, THE HARD WAY! That was nice.

The big highlights in this film are the 3 stars and the heavy duty action scenes. These are equal to some of the Rambo stuff. Well shot and well choreographed. The locations are sweet too – each location offers great cinematography. I mean I was actually stunned at how well made this film is! It’s like it was trying to be than it needed to be. I guess assembling all 3 guys like this meant they had a bigger budget and they used it!

Other highlights include 3 female bikers (one red, one white and one blue) who are called in to extract information from one of the supremacists. They accomplish this removing their tops (all blaxploitation has pointless nudity) and … (I wont reveal it here – you’ll have to see for yourself!)

The best scene in the film, by far, is when Jim Brown is in the mansion of the villain killing off the white bastards and he jumps over the table and lands near a couch, and a moment later Fred Williamson dives through a window, does a roll and lands right next to him and they go off fighting some more!!!!!!!

I stood up and cheered for that moment, and you will too! And when the movie is over you will stand up and cheer.

5/5

J-Man.