Console
best movie i've ever seen.
CrawlerChunky
In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.
Doomtomylo
a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.
johnc2141
the baron is one of those 1970's action movies that tried to cash in on the bigger hits like shaft and superfly.Calvin Lockhart plays a struggling actor/producer who has to deal with mobsters led by Richard Lynch trying to pass as an Italian gangster.anyway the plot is generic the main characters brother has a dept to settle with the mobsters so the baron has to do what he could to settle the score.the late great Joan Blondell plays a very wealthy woman who seduces Lockhart's character.sort of like American gigolo on the side.all for money of course.Richard Lynch who plays the heavy real good,cant remember him playing a good guy in a movie except for the delta fox where hes sort of an anti hero.there's a lot of action and violence and a brief car chase,all in all the baron is pretty entertaining in a b movie kind of way.7 out of 10.
Woodyanders
Calivin Lockhart gives an excellent and affable performance as the Baron, an idealistic and impractical independent filmmaker who's struggling to get his first completed movie distributed. Calvin's a starry-eyed, woolly-headed dreamer with delusions of grandeur who gets a painful and jarring crash course in brutal, sordid reality when one of his financiers, a vulgar and flamboyant dope dealer called the Cokeman (a superbly cool and sweetly villainous turn by Charles MacGregor), demands that Calvin immediately cough up the $300 grand the Cokeman lent to him for his picture. The Cokeman desperately needs the dough to pay off a debt he owes to mean, racist, neurotic, homophobic and highly image conscious bon vivant loan shark Joey (veteran bad guy character actor Richard Lynch in peak scurvy form). Hard up for cash, Lockhart is forced to turn tricks as a gigolo, with his prize customers being wealthy elderly widow Joan Blondell and affluent, married young tease Caroline (the lovely Marlene Clark). Under Phillip Fenty's able, assured direction (Fenty also wrote the unusually thoughtful script and previously penned the screenplay for "Superfly"), this offbeat and interesting feature does an equally adept job as both a taut, gripping down and dirty crime flick and a trenchant, absorbing examination on the difference between dreams and reality, how far one is willing to go to make one's dreams come true, the desire to have control over your life, and the powerful need to be a success on your own terms. The catchy, funky, groovy soundtrack, uniformly top-notch acting (Lynch, decked out in flashy white suits and a snazzy top hat, especially shines as the eminently hateful and manipulative main bastard heavy), a sharply delineated contrast between the cold harshness of life on the streets and the lazy, decadent opulence of the high life, and the compelling, thematically rich narrative further enhance this film's overall sound quality. Although sometimes a bit slow and pretentious, "The Baron" still warrants praise as an ambitious, intriguing, uncommonly reflective and refreshingly unconventional existential thinking man's blaxploitation gangster sleeper.
Wizard-8
This one's a real surprise. First of all, the movie takes itself far more seriously than other black-themed movies of the period. That's not to say there aren't any laughs, though they do come from a few unintentionally funny moments. The other way the movie goes wrong is in the climax, which is unbelievably flat and short. Otherwise, the movie is surprisingly solid. The whole movie-making portion of the movie touch on the true difficulties of making independent movies. (The movie-within-the-movie looks intriguing, and I would have loved to have seen it done feature length!)
The characters are an interesting bunch as well. The "hero" of the movie isn't completely likeable, and his quest to achieve his goal regardless of the fact those near to him get hurt makes him a real atypical lead. Though the biggest kudos goes to Richard Lynch, who gives one of the best performances in his career as the mobster who pursues our hero and the guy who gave him money. He's also in the two best scenes in the movie (the piano-playing bit, the subsequent restaurant scene) - two *fantastic* scenes. The movie is worth renting (if you can find it) for those two scenes alone.
John Seal
Calvin Lockhart is The Baron, a struggling African-American filmmaker trying to get his big break. He gets mixed up with some dirty money and ends up confronting the usual mafia guys trying to keep a brutha down. They're a particularly nasty lot in this one, especially the racist, misogynistic, and homophobic Joey, played here flamboyantly by exploitation regular Richard Lynch. The film is a reasonably enjoyable blend of action and social commentary, and features a terrific score by Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson. Joan Blondell, Raymond St. Jacques, and Marlene Clark are all wasted or underutilised, but Lockhart is good (as usual), even when burdened with some truly horrible 70s fashions.
