Review of Sweet Jesus, Preacherman (1973) by Kevin M — 17 May 2009

After spraying a man with accelerant in a hotel room, lighting the poor sap on fire and mercilessly watching him plummet 5 stories to his doom, assassin Cyrus Holmes finds out that his victim was actually a minister. Sweet Jesus, Hitman! The honkey who gives him missions, aka "The Man", tells Holmes he must don the cloth, pick up the Good Book, and apply for the now-vacant position to work up influence in the neighborhood. Guess who learns he has malignant Preacher DNA and a rabble-rousing silver tongue? Going from Hitman to Preacherman is easy enough, but when Holmes takes a personal interest in certain troubled kids in his 'hood, the interference of smack-pushing gangsters may prove somewhat life threatening. "Sweet Jesus, Preacherman", when'll you stop with the 'caring' shtick and get back to those ice-cold assassinations? Alas, the hand of Jesus can touch even the hardest streetwise brothers (but not prevent him from getting laid, and may in fact aid in his conquests) in the most unlikely ways.

Less unlikely is the inclusion of more villainous whiteys, this time a whack-ass corrupt politician interested in keeping the smack flowing (and keeping the brothers down by extension), never hesitating to hire morons to intimidate the preacher. It's pretty damn boring and routine stuff, with less camp than is required to make most blaxploitation enjoyable and a filmatism even cruder than would be expected. "SJ,P" culminates with a series of fights and a church shootout, all filmed with barely any light at all. The film also fails by not having catchy music or stylish credits. A failure representative of the lowest tier of the genre.