As is with all comedies, the most important aspect isn't the humour.
Imagine, if you will, watching your favourite comedy. This may be Big Bang Theory, Father Ted or Hudson Hawk - hell, I'm not going to judge. Your favourite character from same is on fire, reeling off joke after joke, near suffocating you with hilarity. Now imagine this scene again, but sitting next to you is a dead clown - his lifeless eyes burning into your neck, the lifeless parody of joy all the scarier for its lack of threat. Sorry, childhood nightmare. Anyway, my point is that it's a grim scenario, and if like me your coulrophobia requires daily therapy you most certainly aren't laughing. Yes, the most important aspect of a comedy is atmosphere, and in this respect Black Dynamite delivers in spades. Every scene is a mellow, seventies nostalgia trip which gently caresses laughs out of you like a warm bath made of cherry bakewells, and lovingly topped off with a bubbles distilled from pure elation.
Which isn't to say that the titular hero relies on fond memories to carry the piece. The humour here is exquisite, and the creators have an obvious love for the source material. The film, as you might have guessed, celebrates everything good and bad about the genre. Anyone familiar with the films[footnote]I read Empire's Bluffer's Guide [http://www.empireonline.com/features/bluffers-guide-to-blaxploitation], so in my own mind I qualify.[/footnote] will know that there's a lot of both, and the writers quite rightly realised that spreading the references all across the movie would feel messy, bewilder the audience and choke the laughs. As a result, the first half of the film celebrates the technical faults that mired the genre, and the second half the sheer, balls-to-the-wall silliness that often gave the movies their charm.
The only issue with this dynamic is that the shift between the two is so obvious that the resulting clunk heard during the change can be measured on the Richter Scale. Add to this a slight dip in the action and laughs in the second act and you have a film that sometimes feels unbalanced - whether this is an extremely ironic homage to the way the films were made or a creative oversight is a decision I'll leave to minds considerably more sober than my own.
But in truth, the only real deal breaker in the film is the base concept. If you don't get the first joke, you might as well stop watching because you aren't going to get the next fifty. This, like most spoofs, is an all-or-nothing affair which will leave stragglers flapping in the breeze. The subject matter is a very strict one, and even though the film tries to make its own mark it's very much at the mercy of the genre.
What stands out most about the film is the creators' fastidious attention to detail. Every single aspect of the genre is explored, from fashion to cinematography, and while a lesser comedy would just put them on screen and expect you to laugh, maybe adding in Carmen Elektra in a bikini for good measure, Dynamite works them seamlessly into the plot - and as a final "fuck you" to its peers, you get tits too.
Now that's jive, you turkey.
[HEADING=1]"Sarcastically I'm in charge."[/HEADING][HEADING=3]Because stage notes are for The Man.[/HEADING]
[HEADING=1]and interrupt my Kung Fu!"[/HEADING][HEADING=3]He did tell you, honky-tonk.[/HEADING].jpg)
[HEADING=1]"But... I sell drugs to the community!"[/HEADING][HEADING=3]An awkward and painful answer. Mostly painful.[/HEADING]
haha
