Tres contra todos

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.

Rented this movie because of the three blaxploitation stars in one flick. As a fan of the genre, I can say this movie was one of the best low-ends of the genre...i.e. its no Superfly or Shaft, but it doesn't try to be....just pure, clean, racist-killing fun. We tried to keep track of how many people were killed in this movie...but at one point we just decided to count the neo-nazis that came on the screen, since we know they would get killed anyways. Our total...166 (this is a rough count). Love the Jim Kelly vs. the cops and Jim Brown's inexhaustible ammunition scenes...spoofed very well in "I'm Gonna Git You Sucka". Favorite scene hands down...color coded, motorcycle driving, multi-racial dominatrixes. Very fun flick.

"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".

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.

"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.