That Man Bolt (1973)

Setup with a murder rap and missing his passport, an international courier is forced to take a cool million to Mexico City. But there's more than meets the eye as he lands in LA on his way there.

What to say about this movie? A lot of people like to call this "black James Bond", but I tend to disagree. Williamson is more of a rogue version of Derek Flynt. Really it's a whole mish mash of things. One part Shaft. One part Enter The Dragon. One part Bullit. All mashed up together. William played the role like it was born from him. The action was wham bam fast and the movie is chock full of it. Great locations make this movie stand out. really great popcorn movie.

With that said, this movie could have been sooo much better. I mean it. The movie was convoluted as all hell. "It's real money." "It's fake money" "It's clean money" "It's dirty money'. If you really need a road map to understand what kind of money it really is, this really isn't a movie for you. It's like they had a good simple script and just added on and on to it thinking it will sell even more tickets. This thing really needed a better editor then what it had. A good 20 minutes could have been chopped off. the music didn't have much going for it as well. It sounded like manufactured funk. I'm sorry. gunk. Goldstein doesn't....get funk. It isn't a couple trumpets here, Some wha wha guitars there. It's the feeling behind the that makes it work.

Universal really are asking for it. Another barebones disc. Nothing but a trailer. Alright audio/visual. I'm beginning to think that Uni doesn't really care about it's blaxploitation collection. If they don't want to mess with the stuff, license it to Anchor Bay or Blue underground. They'll do a better job.

Two and a half stars.

Across 110th Street (1972)

Two cops need to learn to work together in order to find three thieves who stole three hundred thousand dollars from the mob. Will they get to them in time before the mob does?

A lot of people thinks this is a blaxploitation film, but it isn't. Sure it takes place in Harlem and it does deal with issues pertaining to black people, but the lead character (Anthony Quinn) is white. So this is really a hard, gritty noir. Nevertheless, it does deal with universal issues. Particularly the idea of wasted time. All three of the main characters (Head thief, Mafia "messenger", police detective) are dealing with the fact that their lives are starting to amount to a hill of beans and aren't about to cut it in this new era. The story is raw and very well done and the main actors (Quinn, Franciosa, Benjamin) really bring out their characters very well. Kotto, playing a young, by the book cop does particularly good as well. But the real praise goes to Harlem itself. It's state of ruin and detriment helps reinforce the feeling of nihilism and depression that motivates the thieves to steal.

Is there some cons. eeehhh. One or two. The film had the feeling of being a bit long. I think this is due to the pacing. Trying to get all the characters introduced kind of slowed it a bit down. Trying to get everyone down at once in one big fell swoop just didn't do it. More evenly paced introduction would have done the film a whole lot better. Give the story a lot more impact.

The DVD is barebones. You're only given a trailer. The audio and visuals are alright. It looks like a transfer, but I'm ok with that. I do wished they did more coverage on this dvd. Just an interview from Yappet Kotto would have made a difference.

Three stars.