FORMAT: DVD (REWATCH)
ORIGINAL REVIEW:
(As posted on July 17th, 2007)
Black action icons Fred (Hammer) Williamson, Jim (Slaughter) Brown, Jim (Enter the Dragon) Kelly, and Richard (Shaft) Roundtree team up for the first and only time. The blaxploitation craze of the 70’s had died down by the time this was released, but if you’re a fan of the genre like me, you won’t care. Unfortunately, all four of the actors are only on screen together for two brief scenes.
The first half of the movie has Kelly competing in a karate tournament for sponsor Roundtree. When the Mob backed financers refuse to pay them their prize money, they fight back. Kelly is shot, and Roundtree is wounded, so they call up Williamson and Brown who show up (halfway into the movie!) to settle the score. Then it becomes a buddy picture with Williamson and Brown getting into fistfights, barroom brawls and blowing stuff up as they search for the money. In the end, Kelly stays in the hospital while Williamson, Brown and Roundtree blow away the baddies.
It’s fun, but imagine what it coulda been like had all four stars had more screen time together. Also starring the one and only Joe (Maniac) Spinell as a greedy promoter. This was Kelly’s last movie. Williamson produced and directed and gets the best line, “You may know kung fu, but I’m an expert at gun fu!”
Jim Kelly actually did show up later on in the Jerry Trimble Die-Hard rip-off Stranglehold as one of the executives being held hostage.
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