Review of Original Gangstas (1996) by Spermian J — 26 Oct 2013

"The Expendables" for 70s blaxploitation. The film's set-up is irresistible for anyone who grew up on 70s exploitation films; nearly all of the original stars of blaxploitation reteam to clean up the streets of their old neighborhood.

Directed by Larry "Hell up in Harlem" Cohen and staring Fred "Black Caesar" Williamson, Jim "Slaughter" Brown, Pam "Foxy Brown"Grier, Richard "Shaft" Roundtree, and Ron "Superfly" O'Neal.

The film is also filled with genre regulars Paul Winfield, Isabel Sanford, Robert Forster, Wings Hauser, Charles Napier and Frank Pesce. Unfortunately, as great as that sounds, this script is pretty weak really, with lame dialogue and a pretty dull build up to the eventual showdown between the new and the original gangstas.

If the film had been written by director Cohen, I imagine it might have had the scrappiness of his low budget genre film of the 70s and even his scripts today that continue to be smart punchy stories.

It also doesn't help that the two leads, Williamson and Brown, are not the strongest of actors when it comes to delivering bad dialogue (though they both still have a fair amount of on-screen charisma), whereas Grier, Roundtree and O'Neal are better actors who can make to poor dialogue seem less awkward.

The film is a definite must see for fans of the genre, but others won't get much out of it.