THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, May 18, 1996 TAG: 9605180555
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E3 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Movie review
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, MOVIE CRITIC
LENGTH: Medium: 82 lines
THERE WAS A TIME when films such as ``Superfly,'' ``Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song'' ``Three the Hard Way'' and ``Cleopatra Jones'' packed in audiences at such Granby Street movie palaces as Loew's and the Norva.
But who would have thought, in their wildest imaginations, that those would someday be looked back upon as the good old days?
The release of ``Original Gangstas,'' a film that features many of the stars of those pioneering films sparks just that reaction. Those films may have been patently racist (with every villain an evil ``whitey''), but they at least provided black audiences with movie heroes that were just as cartoonish and superficial as those that white audiences had had for generations.
The '70s blaxploitation films convinced Hollywood that there was, after all, a black audience out there. The current rash of successful black films, with a new crop of more-responsible young black directors, could surely not exist without those '70s pioneers.
There is no one more deserving to make a dollar or two from the current trend than the original stars - now graying and a bit paunchy in the waist. Wouldn't it be ironic if these gray actioners proved to American audiences that Bob Dole isn't so old after all?
It is with some degree of nostalgia that one notes that ``Original Gangstas'' stars the likes of Fred (Hammer) Williamson, Pam (Foxy Brown) Grier, Richard (Shaft) Roundtree and Ron (Superfly) O'Neal.
It is with regret, though, that we note the new film has just as low a budget as those 1970s entries did and that the tolerance for goodness and understanding is still just as low. Yet again, a kick in the face and a shot in the temple is the way to settle things.
Williamson, who produced the film, plays a football star who returns to his native Gary, Ind., when his father is shot in a grocery-store heist. Dad had dared to give the police evidence on a young, local hood.
Grier, who in the '70s was a frequent visitor to Norfolk (she received the key to the city from the mayor at one of her local premieres), has perhaps weathered the best. At 46, she plays a mom who has a few action moments. Brown, who once had a love scene with Raquel Welch, wears a cap here and is an absent father out to avenge his son.
O'Neal is all but unrecognizable. Roundtree, the first of these stars to get backing from a major studio (from MGM for his ``Shaft'' series) has a surprisingly brief bit as the guy who stayed in the neighborhood and is critical of those who left.
Making guest shots are such actors as Paul Winfield (Oscar nominee for ``Sounder'') and Isabel Sanford (TV-series veteran).
The old guys take on the young hoods and, somewhat implausibly, pin the whippersnappers down with old-fashioned jujitsu kicks. To a movie generation weaned on drive-by shootings and instant deaths, the sock-and-pow knockouts might seem rather quaint.
Most lethally, ``Original Gangstas'' refuses to suggest any kind of camp humor. It takes itself entirely seriously.
We even have to put up with endless rap noise rather than Marvin Gaye or Isaac Hayes. (It's ironic that Hayes, who won an Oscar for the ``Shaft'' score, is employed elsewhere this week, starring in the ``Flipper'' flick that opens Friday).
When all is said and done, ``Original Gangstas'' is a dreadful film. There is some joy, though, in seeing these pioneering stars again. Sidney Poitier might have been the first black actor to win an Oscar, but it was Shaft and Hammer who could arguably reign as the first black movie heroes.
If you want an effective dose of this brand of nostalgia, it might be better to rent ``Coffy,'' ``Shaft'' or ``Three the Hard Way'' than it would be to see this over-the-hill curiosity. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
MOVIE REVIEW
``Original Gangstas''
Cast: Fred Williamson, Pam Grier, Jim Brown, Richard Roundtree,
Ron O'Neal, Isabel Sanford, Paul Winfield
Director: Larry Cohen
MPAA rating: R (profanity, extreme violence, drugs)
Mal's rating: Two stars
Locations: Greenbrier Mall in Chesapeake; Circle 4, Main Gate
in Norfolk; Columbus, Lynnhaven Mall in Virginia Beach
by CNB