| Friday Foster: If here's no pimp, it's not blaxploitation. |
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| This is probably the tamest Pam Grier vehicle you’ll
ever see. Grier stars as fashion photographer Friday
Foster , who is assigned by her boss to cover the
arrival of a black millionaire at the airport (if they
ever specified which city this was set in, I forgot).
However, Carl Weathers shows up and attempts to kill
him, and the rest of the film is about Friday’s
investigation of the assassination attempt.
The thin, thin plot amounts to a conspiracy to kill all the major black leaders in America. The evil mastermind behind this fiendish plot is Mr. Howell from Gilligan’s Island. In a wheelchair. This is quite possibly the least intimidating evil mastermind in motion picture history. A stalk of celery could project more menace. To top it off, nothing happens to him. His black henchmen get killed and his plot is foiled, but he apparently gets away unscathed. I would have killed to have seen Pam Grier toss Mr. Howell out of his wheelchair and kick the ever-lovin’ shit out of him. Anyway, this is the second dumbest Blaxploitaion plot ever. The first being a movie called Three the Hard Way, in which a group of white supremacists have developed a poison that is fatal to black people and no one else. Only an actual white supremacist would be stupid enough to believe that was possible. This is Pam Grier’s first starring role in a movie not directed by Jack Hill, a legendary name in sleazy movies. Consequently, Pam Grier doesn’t do anything awesome like pull a razor blade out of her Afro or blow some dude’s nuts off with a shotgun. Most of the action scenes are chases and gunfights involving a lot of extras. There’s also a cheesy fistfight between Carl Weathers and Friday’s private eye sidekick, played by Yaphet Kotto. There’s also a nice scene where an evil gay fashion designer (played by comedian Godfrey Cambridge) gets crushed by a garbage truck. However, its not a family picture or anything, as there’s lots of gratuitous topless ness, which is the best kind. The supporting cast is pretty impressive for a movie of this kind, with Eartha Kitt as a fashion designer, and Scatman Crothers as a lecherous clergyman. You’ll remember Scatman Crothers as the lecherous orderly from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. And, since it’s not really a blaxploitation movie without a pimp, we have Ted Lange (Isaac from The Love Boat) as a pimp named Fancy Dexter. This character has nothing to do with the rest of the film, the scenes involving him must have been intended as comic relief, even though they are not at all funny. He does have a couple of sweet-ass pimp-mobiles, though. Overall there’s nothing to recommend this movie unless you want to see Pam Grier’s boobs or a fat guy in a phone booth getting smashed by a sanitation truck. |
| Reviewed 13 August 2004 by BLT |
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