Review of Live and Let Die (1973) by Matt L — 28 Nov 2008

The book for 'Live' was written in the fifties, but this film, released in '73, wouldn't be the film it is without the blacksploitation movement of the Seventies. In blacksploitation cinema, you've got a black hero, often involved with drugs, numbers or other unsavory elements, and you of course have the white man trying to keep him down. So of course you get this response, with Bond embodying the White Establishment traveling from Harlem to New Orleans to a made-up Caribbean country to stop heroin-trafficking super-criminal played by Yaphet Kotto (intensely likable, by the way). Moore is good here, but the material is in parts irredeemably racist. At the beginning, I get the feeling that all of Harlem is in on Mr. Big's operation, and the depictions of voodoo are over-the-top cringeworthy. The film drags in its second half, as well, weighed down by a boat chase that drags on far, far too long.

Worth seeing for Moore and Kotto and the requisite Bond Girls, lovely as ever. But you may find yourself wanting to donate to the Black Panthers afterward.