Director: Scott Sanders

Notable Cast: Michael Jai White, Tommy Davidson

Rating: R

Review:  In short, the movie is about Black Dynamite (White) and his declaration to clean the streets after his undercover cop brother is killed by criminals.  Dynamite uses his kung-fu justice to fight his way through low-lives and eventually take down “The Man.”

Black Dynamite is out of this world.  The whole concept of the film is that it’s a “blaxploitation” movie made to poke fun at the genre.  But at the same time, it ends up being a perfect example of what those types of movies were like back then.  In short, you can expect terrible acting, a terrible screen play, terrible production, and a whole lot of anti “The Man” propaganda.  All the movies depicted African-Americans as the heroes, and most had an all African-American cast.  Some stand outs include Blacula and Shaft.  Black Dynamite succeeds by encompassing all those characteristics carefully into the movie, but you knew it was on purpose.  The actors were great because they were actually acting to be bad.  Whereas the originals had bad actors who thought they were good, Black Dynamite had good actors that were trying to be as bad as possible which made it easier for them to be ridiculous.  They could think “for this shot to look super bad and cheesy I have to do…”  The production also takes light of the situation by including some editing cuts that look like “accidents” and even throwing the occasional boom mic into the shot, but again it works because you know the film is supposed to be a commentary on the genre.  Hell, they even name the evil villain “The Man” and refer to him as that the whole movie.  But Black Dynamite is perfect because it knows what it wants to be, and that is not serious in the least bit.  It’s supposed to have poor quality, corny writing, and all the things that plagued early “blaxploitation” films.  Except it wants to.  Which is why we can laugh at it.  This is what a spoof movie is supposed to be; a perfect commentary on something: in this case a whole genre.  Black Dynamite is full of gags and laughs that will please most, but just know that you’re actually supposed to be watching a bad movie.  This way when the first line Black Dynamite says is “Shh. Mama, you’re gonna wake up the rest of the bitches,” you understand the treat you’re in for.  Go with Black Dynamite on this one, for his love of justice and hate of kung-fu treachery.

Netflix Rating: 4/5