Review of Three the Hard Way (1974) by Robin W — 20 Apr 2010
"Three the Hard Way" could almost be described as the "Expendables" of blaxploitation films as it provided a chance for three of the most popular black action stars of the seventies - Fred Williamson, Jim Brown and Jim Kelly - to team up together and kick ass.
The ridiculous plot involves a white supremacy group that plans to eliminate the black population of the world by contaminating the water supply with a deadly serum; it's never quite made clear how exactly they manage to make this serum lethal to black people who drink it and not whites! This storyline was parodied (and actually made more logical sense since it involved contaminating malt liquor!) in the recent blaxploitation spoof, "Black Dynamite", and a lot of the elements that film poked fun of are present in "Three the Hard Way", such as a thin script that requires a lot of padding, on-the-nose expositional dialogue, and some very noticable continuity errors (especially during the fight scene where Jim Kelly's footwear magically changes from boots to sneakers).
However, the movie doesn't try to be anything more than a vehicle for its three stars and, on that level, it definitely succeeds; the whole thing is almost wall-to-wall action, so it never gets boring, and is just 90 minutes of mindless, over-the-top fun for fans of the genre.
This review of Three the Hard Way (1974) was written by Robin W on 20 Apr 2010.
Three the Hard Way has generally received mixed reviews.
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