Black Dynamite (2010)

[NOTE: While Black Dynamite enjoyed a limited run in 2009, the closest it came to a wide screening was its recent release on DVD. Hence, I'm deeming it a 2010 film, and you can bet it's gonna show up on my best of the year list.]

Tagline: He’s super bad. He’s outta sight. He’s…

Curiosity: I know this movie made a stir on the festival circuit in 2009, but it wasn’t until I saw the trailer for it on the Universal Soldier: Regeneration DVD that I realized I needed to see this movie.

Plot: When drug dealers kill his brother, ex-CIA agent Black Dynamite (Michael Jai White, Spawn!!!) goes on a kung fu revenge quest. Turns out BD’s brother was an undercover agent, and the CIA reinstates the man’s license to kill. Dynamite interrogates all manner of mothers with names like Cream Corn (Tommy Davidson) and Sweetmeat (Brian frickin’ McKnight). He and his friends say things like “Now Aunt Billy, how many times have I told you not to call here and interrupt my kung fu” and “Shut up you cracker-ass cracker!” Then they uncover one heck of a rabbit hole.

Thoughts: Black Dynamite follows films like Grindhouse and Hot Fuzz (and, uh, Undercover Brother), in that it takes a disreputable genre (in this case, blaxploitation) and simultaneously spoofs and honors it. The film hits plenty of the key points seen in ’70s blaxploitation films – afros, white villains, jive talk, soul songs that weirdly spell out the plot – while still parodying them. It’s all anchored down my White, who is clearly having a shit-ton of fun the entire time. With a mustache that sweet, how could he not?

Yet much like Hot Fuzz, it often betters its source material. In true B-movie fashion, some of the acting is terrible, but it’s so well-placed that it seems intentionally funny. The story builds and builds into a phenomenally kitschy ending. And the kung fu is damn fine. Sure, the movie is ridiculously, but artfully so. And while the humor occasionally gets too un-P.C. - white stereotypes are hi-larious, but those Asian ones go a hair too far - it's still the funniest movie I've seen so far this year.

Reflection: Arsenio Hall has a cameo. Good for him.