Michael Jai White is BLACK DYNAMITE

“This is the story of 1970s African-American action legend Black Dynamite. The Man killed his brother, pumped heroin into local orphanages, and flooded the ghetto with adulterated malt liquor. Black Dynamite was the one hero willing to fight The Man all the way from the blood-soaked city streets to the hallowed halls of the Honky House.”

Since the trailer first emerged with the classic line – BLACK DYNAMITE: “I’m going to declare war on anyone who sells drugs in our community”. PIMP: “But Black Dynamite, I sell drugs to the community”, my anticipation level for Black Dynamite was through the roof. The spoof (aka broad parody) sub-genre is a schizophrenic beast. It can be mindless fun like the Scary Movie series, or make you scream why, like the seldom watched Epic Movie. Black Dynamite follows in the path set forth by a long list blaxploitation spoof movies, most notably Hollywood Shuffle, I'm Gonna Get You Sucka. The slightly overlong but consistently giggle-worthy Black Dynamite, which aims to do to Shaft and Superfly what The Naked Gun did to police procedural.

Usually the point of a comedy is to make the audience laugh, and Black Dynamite delivers exceedingly. And while Black Dynamite may not accomplish much else, it will make you laugh your ass off. It is one of the most quotable movies I've seen since in a long time, and definitely this year. (This is saying a lot for those that know me, or the Kings personally.) Practically every single scene holds at least one nearly immortal line. And looking back on it, I realize that there are so many one lines, that I feel I've forgotten many already. Seeing this movie with a group of friends is best, as you then will be quoting these lines to each other for a LONG time.

Michael Jai White really steals the show, not only serving as the main actor, but also co-writing this soon to be cult classic. He effortlessly throws the film on his back and runs off with it, with his perfectly executed line delivery, but also with his kung-fu(as its called in the movie). Hopefully this movie can help show Hollywood that he's a true action star that deserves some legit mainstream action films.

As with any spoof genre film, the charade begins to feel played out and goes from being hilarious to redundant and just plain silly. This doesn't come into play until the last 10 or 15 minutes however, so don't dismiss this movies simply based on this. Overall Black Dynamite is a hilarious parody of the 70's blaxploitation genre packed with first-rate one liners and impressive martial arts that should not be missed. It does lose some if its momentum near the end of the film, but by then you probably you won't even care. Only playing on limited screens, if you can't find it, the DVD will be out in February.