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.

Three the Hard Way stars football greats Jim Brown and fred Williamson, and former karate middleweight champion Jim Kelly. Together, they are reunited when one of their buddies is snuffed out trying to expose a neo-nazi operations camp. Each hero comes from a different city and each has a unique combat style. When a neo-nazi leader(Jay"Dr. Shrinker" Robinson) plots to contaminate the waters of three big cities to the extent that only black-americans will be affected, the trio springs into action using street fighting, exploding gun fights,and high kickin' martial arts to thwart the evil villain.

"Three The Hard Way" starring Jim Brown, Jim Kelly from "Enter The Dragon", and Fred "The Hammer" Williamson, is an excellent action flick about three black action heroes who go up against a racist (fascist)organization, who are out to kill the black population. Gordon Parks Jr., who is the son of "Shaft" director Gordon Parks Sr., does an excellent job in directing the memorable action sequences throughout the film, and should be remembered as one of the few African-American directors who has made history in directing action films. In addition, Jim Kelly, Jim "Slaughter" Brown, and Fred Williamson do an extraordinary job displaying their action hero skills, and should always be remembered as the action heroes who came before Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger. However, when I had seen this movie on video, the lighting in some of the action scenes were very hard to see making it very difficult to enjoy throughout the film. Nevertheless, this movie will always be, in my opinion, one of the best blaxploitation films alongside "Shaft", "Superfly", and "Cleopatra Jones".

Well, I have to admit that I haven't really watched much of the 'blaxploitation' movies. But I had the opportunity to sit down in 2021 to watch the 1974 "Three the Hard Way" movie. So of course I did that, as I wanted to see what it was.

And as it turned out, then "Three the Hard Way" was actually an entertaining movie. I certainly hadn't expected it to be something as enjoyable as it turned out to be. And I must say that despite being made in 1974, then "Three the Hard Way" is really a movie that has withstood the test of time, because it is still a very watchable movie now 47 years later.

The storyline in "Three the Hard Way", as written by writers Eric Bercovici and Jerrold L. Ludwig is a pretty straight forward storyline, sort of bordering on the simplistic actually. So this movie is one where you just grab the popcorn and lean back to enjoy the action.

"Three the Hard Way" is a movie complete with a funky soundtrack, dubious fight scenes, over-the-top gunfight scenes and generally just a very enjoyable atmosphere. And director Gordon Parks Jr. Definitely made the movie very watchable.

The acting in "Three the Hard Way" was good enough, taking into consideration that this was hardly a thespian drama at high levels. It is what it is, and with that in mind, the performances in the movie were adequate.

If you haven't already watched Gordon Parks Jr.'s 1974 movie "Three the Hard Way", then you certainly should do so, if you get the opportunity. Don't be discouraged by the age of the movie, because it is still a very enjoyable movie today.

My rating of "Three the Hard Way" lands on a six out of ten stars.

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.