“Black Dynamite”
Directed by Scott Sanders
Written by Michael Jai White, Byron Minns and Scott Sanders
Starring: Michael Jai White
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
One showing: Saturday, Jan. 9, at midnight, Ken Cinema in Kensington

‘Black Dynamite’ — Blaxpoitation revisited
By Scott Marks

The makers of “Black Dynamite” obviously know that caricature means more than simply replicating hairstyles and awkwardly-staged fight scenes. Watch the movie without sound and you’d swear that you were looking at an American International Picture from the early 70s. But where does Xerography end and parody begin?
Dialogue would be a logical starting point. When a clueless young activist calls him an “Uncle Tom,” Black Dynamite (Michael Jai White) pauses to compose himself before delivering one of the most impressive résumés ever committed to film: “Listen sucka, I’m blacker than the Ace of Spades and more militant than you and your whole damn army put together. And while you out there chantin’ at rallies and brow-beatin’ politicians, I’m takin’ out any money-frontin’ sucka on a humble that gets in my way. So I tell you what … when your so-called revolution starts you call me and I’ll be right down front showin’ you how it’s done. But until then, you need to shut the ‘f ‘ up when grown folks is talkin’.”
The granddaddy of all blaxploitation films is probably Robert Downey Sr.’s “Putney Swope.” The biting satire tells the story of a black man accidentally put in charge of a Madison Avenue advertising firm. “Swope” helped to plant seeds for two elements essential to the genre: subject material that is an affront to the establishment and using African-Americans as talent without giving them any say in the creative process. Blaxploitation films officially coalesced as a genre in 1971 with the release of the independently produced “Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song” and M.G.M.’s “Shaft.”
Audiences that frequented black action movies weren’t in it for the art. For every thoughtful blaxploitation film (“The Spook Who Sat by the Door,” “Across 110th St.,” “Mandingo,” “Willie Dynamite”) there were dozens of inept action programmers (“Bucktown,” “The Thing with Two Heads,” “Honky”), unwatchable sequels (“Scream, Blacula, Scream,” “Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold,” “Let’s Do it Again”) and even a generic hybrid or two (“Black Shampoo,” “Disco Godfather”). The demand for these films began petering out toward the end of the decade when home video became a relatively inexpensive entertainment option.
Even his mother calls him Black Dynamite. Forget about Jim Brown, D’Urville, The Hammer, Rudy Ray and Richard Roundtree. Part Robin Hood, part Father Flannigan and 100 percent woman’s dream, Black Dynamite is the biggest, baddest, blackest mother of them all. With all the fists and bullets this dude lets fly it’s clear that Black Dynamite has no regard for adult lives, but pity the fool who does anything to harm a kid. Borrowing a page from Mr. T, who needed children to soften his tough side and increase toy sales, our hero’s code clearly states he must do everything in his power to protect the kids, or as he calls them, “keeds.”
After an unnecessary TV commercial parody that opens the proceedings, the film seldom breaks character. On the surface it’s all Afros, Vietnam flashbacks, obligatory anti-drug messages, Kung Fu, community awareness as a means of expressing social consciousness and men’s black mid-length leather jackets. The film takes even greater pleasure in lampooning the haphazard style in which these films were slapped together. You’ll find quick zooms to reframe the action, synthesized stock music cues, split screens, flat lighting, garish fight sound effects, death by process shot and even a purposely awful substitution of a double in mid-take.
The only contrivance more prevalent than a sloppy zoom shot in blaxploitation films is painfully self-conscious expository dialogue. All of the black action classics starred African-American actors, but the preponderance of them were written and directed by pandering white guys who felt the need to spell things out so as not to tax the target audience. A flashback introduces us to two young men we haven’t seen before. For those who might have difficulty understanding the concept of a flashback, one of the characters kicks things off by saying, “Jimmy, I am 18-year-old Black Dynamite and you are my 16-year-old kid brother.”
Michael Jai White, no stranger to action or exploitation pictures, co-wrote the script and stars. As authentic as the film’s trappings are, White’s performance holds the film together. White endows Dynamite with the uncanny ability to shift vocal ranges from measured tones to lively jive. After castigating his underlings and ordering them to “shake the scene” the bipolar Black calmly finishes his tirade by nicely telling them, “I’ll see y’all tomorrow.”
As of this writing, San Diegans will have one shot at “Black Dynamite” and I can’t think of a better time or place to see it. There will be a midnight screening on Saturday, Jan. 9, at Landmark’s Ken Cinema in Kensington. This is a movie you’re going to want to see with a crowd. Who knows? If enough of you attend, it could mean a future booking.