Drei eiskalte Profis

"Three the Hard Way" earned its reputation on the presence of (and chemistry between) its three roundly diverse Black action stars - Fred Williamson, Jim Brown and Jim Kelly. They were perfectly cast for a film with an engaging premise about "The Man" poisoning the water supply in three major urban/inner cities. It featured some sweet eye-candy along the way (including the always divine Sheila Frazier as imperiled "Wendy" - fresh off of "Superfly" - a more devilish interracial trio of masochistic beauties, and Fred in the bed with yet another babe), an underrated soundtrack by a quartet edition of The Impressions (post-Curtis Mayfield but featured on-screen in a recording session as record producer Brown's rising stars) and all the tricked-out blaxploitation trimmings.

The problem is that because the script was anemic of healthy plot twists, padding is embarrassingly in full effect...including an overly long speedboat sequence that plays like a vanity piece for Williamson to pose and look pretty (with a second classy lady by his side less than 5 minutes after leaving the first one - "playa-playa," we get the point), and an equally long stretch of the aforementioned leather-clad "hench-bitches" rumbling into town on their choppers. That's too much celluloid cellulite wasted on characters styling and profiling, and not enough story intricacies to keep the tension tightly mounted.

When things do heat up, it's great to see the three stars interact. Ironically, MVP honors go not to former football giants Brown or Williamson but to Jim Kelly, whoopin' on a crooked cracker cop that makes the mistake of planting some illicit substances in his gold-plated ride. "Wanna set me up," Kelly asks with most righteous indignation, then proceeds to kick the pig's ass all over both sides of a Windy City side street! Director Gordon Parks, Jr. should have also let the soul brothers have more hang time without making them jump straight into their mission to save all brotherhood - maybe even a flashback to when they were youngbloods, foreshadowing their personalities as grown men. While the stars' talents weren't totally wasted, "Three the Hard Way" should have been much more epic.

Someday an ambitious director and a cast of wanna-be's (likely a rapper or two) will try to remake this flick. Their biggest challenge - beyond fleshing out the story - will be finding three stars as compelling as Brown, Williamson and Kelly. Let's raise a snifter of Harvey's Bristol Creme that somebody at least has the fortitude to release the original on DVD, unedited, with commentary and maybe a featurette including the participation of all three baad-asss action heroes.

I really appreciate the blaxploitation flix for all their fabs and flaws. This one in particular is an inspiring but flawed film. Not so much as the story, but in the stunts. When Jim Kelly is fighting the crooked cops in the streets, he switches from boots to sneeks!!!! The three female friends look awfully macho while riding through the city. Overall, the story is scary, in the notion that some wealthy racists would ever try to do something so sinister. A fun film, with true heroes and vile villains.

A group of neo-Nazis plot to poison the water supply of three major American cities with a chemical that will wipe out the black population. Enter Fred Williamson, Jim Brown and Jim Kelly. This trio of badasses get on the case and immediately start kicking Nazi butt.

Three the Hard Way is an action-packed blaxploitation flick that's main selling point seems to be the inclusion of three big stars of the genre in one movie. The trio of leads are all good value too, especially Jim Kelly and his kung fu fighting. The plot-line itself is fairly basic but it does allow for a set-up where the three inner-city black heroes can take on The Man and outwit him at every stage. There is a huge body-count as Nazi after Nazi is gunned down, blown up or kicked into oblivion. Once the three friends hook up it's basically a non-stop barrage of action. We also have a trio of inter-racial colour co-ordinated topless motorcycle dominatrixes who interrogate one Nazi with methods we can only imagine.

This is a fun film full of action and three charismatic leads. For blaxploitation fans I would think this is a must.

Though only in the movie for one scene, three actresses established a set of exciting characters that deserved their own spinoff. The Countess, Princess and Empress (Pamela Serpe, Marie O'Henry, and Irene Tsu, respectively) light up the proceedings as a topless trio of sadists brought in to scare the crap out of a thug, softening him up for interrogation. We only hear whatever they do, and see the tattered remnants of his bravado after their ministrations. Hot and hard of body and nature they be. A lot of wasted potential with nobody ever knocking out a Blaxploitation flick for those three to headline. They couldda been more than a contedah, perhaps collectively billed as Charlie's Devils.

Three the Hard Way (1974)

*** (out of 4)

A group of evil whites have come up with a special chemical that can be put into water and it will only harm the black people who drink it. One black man escapes from their facilities and manages to get word back to Jimmy Lait (Jim Brown) who calls upon Jagger (Fred Williamson) and Mister Keyes (Jim Kelly) to go after the crackers.

THREE THE HARD WAY isn't a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination but if you're a fan of the 70's blaxploitation then you're bound to have a good time with it. The film is pretty much what you'd expect from an exploitation picture of this era as it features a pretty wild and over-the-top story where every white person is a racist nut and every black person is a hero.

It appears that director Gordon Parks, Jr. was a fan of explosions because there are quite a few that happen throughout this picture. In fact, there are sometimes cars exploding when there really wasn't any reason for them to do so other than it seems the director wanted to see it. This certainly adds to the fun and we've also got several other fun action scenes including a highlight where Brown is being chased around a parking garage constantly having to get out of the way of these cars trying to smash him.

As I said, there's certainly nothing ground-breaking from a technical standpoint but fans of the genre should have some fun with this. The biggest benefit is getting to see Brown, Williamson and Kelly all in the same picture. They would appear in the same picture later in their careers but this here was when they were all in their prime.