"Dynomite, Dynomite!" A Review Of Black Dynamite

Black Dynamite is currently playing in select theaters. If you are one of the  fortunate few who can watch this masterpiece in your city I support this decision and I implore you to bring friends as well as family. Sure Black Dynamite carries an R-rating. There is a message for all underneath the homage and parody of Blaxploitation cinema. The message is simple, "This is for you, if you did not get it, then it was never for you."

Michael Jai White is the co-screenplay writer, co-producer and more importantly the lead actor; Black Dynamite.  In true blacksploitation form, Black Dynamite opens with sponsors and promotional rough-cuts. They are funny and would set the tone for Black Dynamite, where there are tons of laughs within several jokes, but not ever joke evokes a laugh.

Black Dynamite (the person) embodies this 1970's throwback, African-American superhero. He has flaws and possibly illegitimate children, but his style and charisma keeps the audience rooting for him. He is ex-military, but has dedicated his life to being militant in his community.  Thanks to a fantastic art/wardrobe design team and a funky-soulful score, Black Dynamite completly embodies why fans of the genre hold movies like Coffy and Shaft in such high regard.

The supporting cast works on a great deal of levels. Black Dynamite, as a movie, thrives on comedy beyond the occasional inconsistent edit and intentional cheesy emotional scene. John Salley, Cedric Yarborough, Bokeem Woodbine and the comedy maestro himself, Arsenio Hall all are pimps who fear Black Dynamite. All of them  have their small moments on-screen, as does Kim Whitley (a house Madame named Honeybee) and Nicole Sullivant (the wife of Nixon). I am sure there is a long reel somewhere of all of this improv gold.

Underneath All Of That Pimp Is An Aresnio Hall

The story of Black Dynamite is just as non-sensical and "badass" as the movies it is paying homage to.  There is a quest for revenge for an undercover relative. I am pretty sure there was a fight with the Chinese, heck there may have even been a helicopter or two. As entertaining as all of that was, Black Dynamite (the character) made the movie; which is why it is aptly titled. Michael Jai White is an actual martial artist, anyone who seen the Spawn movie [barring the overdone CG] would know this. His prowess physically and, ahem, sexually are shown in such a humorous manner it would have to be the prudest of audiences to take issue with how it is depicted.

True, there are jokes that run dry after a while. There are some scenes that run a tad to long, such as the scene where Black Dynamite and Cream Corn [Tommy Davidson] are running, for to long ... in one scene. There will be moments where you'll say, "Hey, I get the joke, now can we move on already?" and thanks to the skillful director Scott Sanders, the scenes are paced brilliantly.

Black Dynamite has a fair amount of nudity, gigantic revolvers that never seem to run out of ammo. The  movie is rife with gratuitous violence which serves no purpose other than to make the lead actor look "cool". The story revolves around the black community and its issues with the Nixon administration, alcoholism and of course the Chinese. Black Dynamite, as a movie, is more complete than any film that will be released and be deemed "Oscar-worthy" in the next couple of weeks.

What do you want from a movie titled Black Dynamite? If it is insight into what made Blaxploitation cinema special to the community that supports it, then yes, that is there. But if you want to kick back and laugh at a movie which exudes heart from its tone and score, then by all means, cock your gigantic gun and give this movie a shot.

I Give Black Dynamite...

An Improperly Placed Pimp Slap

Comments

[Alphonse]

what is that the black version of the 007 James Bond, this looks like the undercover brother father, dude I'm black but this look so ridiculous, why not we left the spy game to white people and we dedicated to use to get back the breath to all women that look it us.