Black Dynamite

2009 "He's super bad, he's outta sight. He's Black Dynamite."
7.4| 1h25m| R| en| More Info
Released: 16 October 2009 Released
Producted By: Destination Films
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website: http://www.blackdynamitemovie.com
Synopsis

This is the story of 1970s African-American action legend Black Dynamite. The Man killed his brother, pumped heroin into local orphanages, and flooded the ghetto with adulterated malt liquor. Black Dynamite was the one hero willing to fight The Man all the way from the blood-soaked city streets to the hallowed halls of the Honky House.

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Reviews

Lovesusti The Worst Film Ever
GamerTab That was an excellent one.
Lawbolisted Powerful
AshUnow This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.
Scott LeBrun Michael Jai White plays the cooler than cool, baddest bad ass of them all, the titular Black Dynamite. Black Dynamite gets word that his younger brother has been killed. BD vows not only to solve the crime, but to wage war on the drug trafficking in his neighbourhood. With the help of friends like Cream Corn (Tommy Davidson) and Bullhorn (Byron Minns), our smooth and deadly hero follows the trail of corruption all the way up to the top.The script, by White, Minns, and director Scott Sanders can't help but lose some momentum here and there, and not all of the humour may work for everybody, but these guys are to be commended for their precision in the way that they spoof vintage blaxploitation. "Black Dynamite" actually feels like a 1970s movie that just happens to have been made in the 21st century. There's profanity aplenty, lots of breast shots, and a fair but not excessive amount of raunch.The extremely fit Mr. White is a strapping dude who can handle himself quite capably in any number of action scenes. He's well supported by an amazing line-up of character actors and guest stars. Some of them do act like they're in on the joke, while others play the material with appropriately straight faces.The big revelations are particularly delicious: when it is shown just what The Mans' evil plan is, and especially when we find out who The Man is.The closing credits feature some amusing outtakes and some very snazzy animation, helping to send you away with a smile on your face.One of the best spoofs to come along in a while, since the glory days of Mel Brooks and the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker team.Seven out of 10.
johnnyboyz Black Dynamite is nonsense, but then again of course it's nonsense. Films like Black Dynamite are of those rare breed wherein labelling it anything else OTHER than nonsense is, in a way, derogatory. If the film makers have set out to make a winking, nudging exploitation film chock full of everything inside of Black Dynamite that we get, then it's hardly complimentary to then come away and speak of how much the plot made sense; how much the character stuff was bang-on and how 'non' nonsensical it all was. True, there is the odd misstep in Scott Sanders' on-the-whole-pretty-darned-good self-referential, self-aware-stab at one of those predominantly African American 70's exploitation films; jokes about the sizes of genitalia and some less than pleasant moments involving unnecessarily gory violence dampen the experience, but it's a worthwhile experience all-the-same. It's better than Death Proof, which is what those behind the production will want to hear while it's also better than something like Michel Hazanavicius' quite awful "OSS: Nest of Spies", a French film toying with the espionage genre where these other examples have been more inclined towards horror and grindhouse movements.The film begins with an amusing sequence wherein a well-spoken black individual, who's well out of his depth in being undercover, is caught as not being on the criminally minded level of those in his immediate vicinity. Black and whites are in the process of doing a shady deal involving hard drugs, but brother Jimmy (Vaughn) is found as a fake and mercilessly eradicated. Big mistake, for this man's brother is the titular Black Dynamite, played by Michael Jai White; an ex-CIA veteran of the Vietnam War who's a Hell of a ladies man and will kick down the front doors of most residences if it means garnering access, regardless of threat levels or apparent ease of access. For Black Dynamite, the case of finding out the truth behind the deal and his brother's killers offers the meekest of character arcs in that he always promised their mother he'd keep young Jimmy on the straight and narrow and away from the likes of drugs, et al. Thus, when his corpse turns up with all this drug related content surrounding him, not only is there a lust for payback to be quenched but for a sense of self correction to be attained. Later on, the lead will have to venture to a very Vietnam-like secluded jungle locale where the chief hostilities lie and the confrontation of his wartime demons must be vanquished if he is to succeed.There is no discernible narrative to proceedings, just a series of scenes with their own self-referential guile wherein double takes; poorly implemented stock footage and outtakes which have infiltrated their way into the final cut are the norm. Characters and would-be villains come and go; maybe the film is incomprehensible on purpose, maybe scenes are in the wrong order – perhaps some are even missing but you go along with madness incarnate approach to plot on its energy and often amusing moments. For all the references and general content leaning so heavily toward exploitative African American cinema of yester-decade, it is 1971 British film Get Carter to which it seems to doff its hat most. Like Mike Hodges' sensitive and yet all-at-once explosively brutal crime masterpiece, we observe someone out to avenge the death of their brother before further still unravel a plot to do with tight-lipped higher ups of a dominant hierarchy running a racket for their sordid thirsts and business-like gains: the difference being there's a bit of kung-fu here.I know little of exploitation cinema myself, but I image it was a process of liberation to be able to go to a cinema specialising in stuff that you knew, deep down, you weren't supposed to be watching and/or liking. Whether it was violence; sexual content; bad language or crass gender and racial politics, I suppose there was a sense of the whole exercise being a rising up against the authority embedded in the roots of opting to tune in to one of these films. One's parents, or guardians, would frown upon such things while academics would, I'm sure, almost invariable dismiss said nights out engaging with said pictures as the "lesser" of several cinematic options. Whatever the reality, the film maintains a sense of going up against administrative figures or figures of authority: the people in charge. In Black Dynamite, the enemy for a long while appear to be these suit-clad politicians whose idea to solve problems through words and talk instead of the "old fashioned" way of violence and dishing out a bit of retribution. This rubs the lead the wrong way and I think the film captures that sense of going up against a sort of moral physicality. It doesn't glorify these things, but it does well to, I think, capture the essence of how one might have arrived at watching the film, now, on top of everything that once was. Sanders' film is in the spirit of things, and it does this instead of feeding off petty indulgences alá Death Proof. The film is by no means a masterpiece - it's a bit better than the usual fare of this sort, although does pale in comparison to another one of Tarantino's from this field: From Dusk 'til Dawn. Even so, it's a short, sharp burst of titillation and shenanigans with only a couple of false steps that worked more than it had any right to.
Nixonbrian42 It's difficult to actually come across consistently hilarious spoofs or comedies in general. My favorites in the genre are Airplane! and the Naked Gun series and this brilliant laughfest towers right up there next to them. There is so many razor sharp jokes spread out in this film that it's hard to decide which sequence is the funniest. In my opinion probably the Kung Fu practicing with his turkey Japs, that sequence really is pure dynamite. Some other negative reviews stated that Michael J. White is not funny and that is completely false, he's not just funny but one of the best performers of black comedy I've seen in decades (black comedy as in style not color).Michael also wrote the film which is even more impressive. Hopefully we'll see more comedy from him in the future.Dy-No-Mite--Dy-No-MiteOutstanding!!!!!
siderite Nowadays, an American parody is almost always something that references other movies, but in the end is just a bad movie with lots of sex jokes. Black Dynamite is one of those rare films that can honour the things it is parodying and still be funny as hell: a true parody.That doesn't mean I share some of the enthusiasm of other reviewers here. It is hard at times to make the difference between the film and the movies it is parodying. Is it a parody or just a blackspoitation movie made in the 21st century? Occasional caricaturizations of the characters keep the viewer amused, but let's face it, it is hard to make a blackspoitation film not funny, anyway.Bottom line: Jax is sticking it to the man and, leaving dubious homosexual catchphrases aside, it is a funny parody of the 70's films with muscular black fighters and silly kung-fu. However, if you are too young to know what I am talking about, this film might not seem that amusing. It's a matter of taste, like always, but at least it is a film that sticks to the principles of making a parody.