When
Jackie Brown (1997) came out, everyone
fall all over themselves acting like Quentin Tarantino had literally
resurrected Pam Grier from the grave, but in reality she had just been directed
throughout the previous year by John Carpenter in Escape from L.A., by Tim Burton in Mars Attacks! and by Larry Cohen in Original Gangstas (all 1996), all of which made affectionate use of
her reputation as a cult heroine of 70s blaxpoitation films. Sure, if rankings and value judgements are
all that matter, Jackie Brown is
certainly the superior film in that group.
Personally, I place value on idiosyncrasy and lack of pretension, not to
mention the courage to make films without the cloak of respectability. What I can’t embrace in Tarantino is the
notion that he is somehow lifting genre films out of the gutter and turning
them into award-worthy works of art, which is slightly condescending, though I don’t
doubt his love for the movies he constantly references. Carpenter and Cohen, on the other hand, made
their scraggly, goofy films of ‘96 in the same spirit in which the 70s films
were made, with no sense of irony or apology.
And they suffered for their commitment too, while Tarantino collected
accolades as the premiere auteur of his generation. Oh yes, I’m supposed to be talking about Original Gangstas here. Aside from the added element of nostalgia, it’s
exactly like the older films it evokes; silly, violent, melodramatic, genuine
and entertaining, and it leaves you wishing that it was just a little better, as
if with a little more thought it might have been great instead of good. In the industrial town of Gary, Indiana,
where the closing of the steel factories left thousands jobless, crime runs
rampant, with gun-toting gangs controlling the streets and keeping the few
remaining residents in a state of fear. Not so pleased about this are the members of
an old gang called the Rebels, who presumably were more like a wholesome West Side Story kind of street gang back
before the streets became a drug-infested war zone. They begin to fight back, training ordinary
citizens into a little army of slow-moving vigilantes. These “original gangstas” include Grier (Foxy Brown), Fred Williamson (Black Caesar), Jim Brown (Slaughter; and also Grier’s co-star in Mars Attacks!), Richard Roundtree (Shaft) and Ron O’Neal (Superfly). The cast is quite impressive; only Jim Kelly
and maybe Isaac Hayes seem to be missing.
Even the Chi-Lites appear in one scene as a bar band. Also on hand are cult favorites like Wings
Hauser, Charles Napier and yes, Mr. Robert Forster, who would co-star memorably
with Grier in Jackie Brown the
following year. Maybe there was a bit of
haste or even laziness in the preparation of the script because the premise
seemed to write itself and the singular appeal of the whole concept is to see
all these great stars together on screen, but it’s all in good fun and it’s
hard to hold anything against such a plain and unassuming movie. As to be expected, the film was not
well-received by critics and proved to be an ignominy that ended Larry Cohen’s
directing career. He returned only to
make an episode of the anthology series Masters
of Horror, but Original Gangstas remains
his last feature.
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