The Mack

When you see "I'm Gonna Git You Sucker" and others of the like, you won't find it nearly as funny until you see this. From the Player's ball to the outrageous kills to make it to the top, you can't help but laugh.

Even the plot review on the box totally misleads you into thinking this is about a man trying to clean up his neighborhood. It isn't, but you won't care.

For fun, try a drinking game. Drink every time someone says "man". I assure you will be drunk in the first 10 minutes or else you wish you were.

This movie begins with a shootout in Oakland between the police and a group of black men. One of the black men named "Goldie" (Max Julien) is caught and sentenced to 5 years in a penitentiary. When he finally gets released he meets up with a childhood friend name "Lulu" (Carol Speed) who has since become a prostitute and laments to him how difficult her profession is without a pimp. He then makes the decision to accept the challenge and begins to actively recruit attractive women to oversee. One thing leads to another and soon he becomes the top "mack" in all of Oakland. Yet while this obviously translates into increased revenues for him it also attracts other undesirable elements who want a cut as well. So now he has to contend with crooked cops and an organized crime boss in addition to his rivals. Now, rather than reveal any more of the story and risk ruining the movie for those who haven't seen it I will just say that this was a fairly good "blaxploitation" film which seemed to get better as the movie progressed. Personally, I didn't think Max Julien fit the role that well because of his quiet demeanor but he still put in a decent performance all the same. Certainly worth a watch for those who enjoy films in this genre.

The Mack is not simply a 'blaxploitation' movie. You can take it seriously as a drama and it works very well. It depicts a time and place honestly, even as it is still making drama out of this world of pimps and hookers and cops and violence and money. It's crude, but it has a kind of inherent integrity that's hard to explain.

Max Julien may break out into a grin or smile once too much, but he can, and does, carry this movie really well. He makes this entire thing become alive in a way that he is likable and charismatic, and yet carries a level of authority. You don't doubt for a second that he can become this Mega-Pimp.

The scummy police men are played so slimy they transcend typical trash and become epically trash-tastic (the worst white cops maybe in any 70's movie?), and Richard Pryor as the not-really-comic sidekick helps a good deal too.

Great music, real dramatic conflict, and DAMN do some people get f****d up here! Most weird but enjoyable scene for me (and maybe the closest it gets to being so OUT-there exploitation-y) is when Goldie is giving his "orientation" bit to the hookers in the planetarium. I want to watch that on a loop.

Blaxploitation has never had a good working relationship inside mainstream cinema because it sometimes required the audience to relate with people who were pimps, pushers, hookers, and any other rabble of common street criminals. But people loved movies like "Reservoir Dogs" and "Trainspotting"; yet "Dogs" had murderous jewel thieves in the leads and "Trainspotting" was about heroin addicts in Edinburgh. So then, "The Mack" can't be any different from those two, can it?

I missed Blaxploitation when it arose during the 60s and 70s because I wasn't alive; I was born in 1985. I stumbled across "The Mack" at a local used book store that also sold videos. Sitting on a rack, was "The Mack."

After doing five rough years in prison, Goldie (Max Julien) decides to become a pimp in order to make a living, much to the dismay of his younger brother Olinga (Roger E. Mosley), who has become radicalized within the pro-Black civil rights movement during the time that Goldie has spent behind bars. Goldie then has to contend with a pair of racist, corrupt cops who hound him constantly and rival pimps.

"The Mack" is a movie that has become an enormous influence on modern hip-hop culture and is frequently referenced to in the films of Quentin Tarantino. Max Julien makes for a truly convincing "Mack" and there's even a rather subdued, yet incredibly funny supporting performance from Richard Pryor.

This movie really does capture the essence of a chaotic time period perfectly. Vietnam was going on in 1973 and some people felt that life in America was in shambles, with drugs and crime running rampant in this country. So I guess that's why people praised movies like "Death Wish," "Dirty Harry," "A Clockwork Orange," and basically any Sam Peckinpah movie that came out during the 70s.

Along with maybe "Shaft" and "Foxy Brown," "The Mack" could probably be one of the better known Blaxploitation flicks released during the 70s. I loved this movie from beginning to end. But it's a shame that "The Mack" is not more well-known in the movie-going community.

10/10

Robert J. Poole deserves credit for writing clever and gritty lines. This movie was urban before people even referred to movies as urban. Pretty Tony: "You know the name of the game , your bitch chose me." Loved that exchange!!!!! The Mack showed that urban movies way back then had a broader appeal than thought by Hollywood. The whole subculture of pimping has been covered in books and movie. The Mack was far a head of it's time and place. I never understood why people would get offended over The Mack. Writer Robert J. Poole did not invent pimping. It's been there, Prostitution is the oldest profession. The Mack has intelligent writing.