Gestapo negra

Before the opening credits we see real footage of the Nazi army marching and chants of "Sieg Heil". Hitler walks by and the frame freezes. Lettering, "The Black Gestapo", pops up on the screen in old English and the funk music kicks in. Oh my, very weird and sure to ruffle a few feathers.

The first half of the film is the better with the evil white crime syndicate going to war with The People's Army. All too soon though, The People's Army is exploiting it's own people in the exact same manner the driven out whites did. No, we can no longer root for the Black Gestapo since they are shown doing or saying the exact same horrible things the whites had previously done in at least three scenes. The point, very much the same as that of the novel "Animal Farm", is really driven home so that even the least sharp viewer could grasp it. Those who overthrow the oppressor are doomed to become oppressors themselves. Sad to say, my mind was not blown.

Well, as I said, the early battles in the film are sick. The whites have to pack up and leave, threatening to return during one long scene of dialogue, yet they never do. I was left waiting for an awesome climactic gang war, but instead only got a mediocre battle between the one time People's Army leader and his organization gone bad. Yeah, there are some novel deaths, but nothing like the brutality of earlier scenes. One the whole there is some mean stuff in this picture, lots of abuse, and black people in Nazi type uniforms. It won't be forgotten.

BLACK GESTAPO is a hoot. I mean it's funny and entertaining and never bores. It keeps clicking along right until the very much unbelievable end. You got 'nads being chopped off, naked women all over the place, black men dressing up like nazis and a mean,nasty vibe this picture just can't shake. I suggest buying it. Today.

Seriously, that's what the film asks you to buy. Mack always seemed pretty friendly and easy going. Even 15 years before Night Court, this is the last guy you could see as a dictator. What next, Doogie Howser of the KGB? Seig Heil Gilligan? Seinfeld the Terrible?

And that any effort at Black liberation is no better than mass murdering Nazis. That's what gets the film 2 pts instead of zero. Lurid Nazi-sploitation of the dumbest kind.

But really the blood and breasts thrown in for no reason are just dull.

Well, the version of this film that I own comes in a 4-pack of Black Vengance, found at Best Buy's bargain movie bin, it contains other genere winners like Black Fist 2, and The Black Six. Its a re-release of the material originally done in the early 1970s firmly rooted in the black power social movement, utilizing the film Blacksploitation title with liberty.

The film its self runs something like 90 minutes, contains several scenes of pointless nudity, poorly coreographed violence, and multiple overdubs of Hitler-era Germany. Language is also a mix of obscenities and jive-lingo. Children really shouldnt see this movie until they are old enough to understand the historical context that produces it.

It centers around General Ahmed's creation of a Black People's Army [read: Brownshirt revolution], that aims to end the gross injustices exercised on the local black populace by a half-assed white 'mob,' interested in extortion money, and beating up prostitutes. After a black nurse is raped by the 'mob', Col. Kojah enters to recruit a special black response unit of commands that begin extracting militant revenge on the white community. Soon after, Kojah's group overpowers everything else Ahmed's ideas stand for, and the Black Gestapo militant unit superceeds it. Most of the movie then focus'es on Kojah's unit [read SS], bedecked in the finest Nazi wears [yes, explicitly done], and the struggle of pressure versus resistance to impose societal justices.

Several themes are somewhat interesting, including the increased violence towards women by both repsonse units, the characterization and sexuality of the women [with unnecessary nudity and sex scenes] as well as a theme of mans' degenerative nation, once given a sip of power. All in all, I'd never pay money to see this in a theater, but for comedic relief it is quite funny. Several social issues can be extrapolated, and I could see how the political/social movement of the times had strongly impacted the final version of the film. Even the end of the film, culminating in the assination of Kojah's soldiers and he himself, appear to summarize the views of the then powerful movement that was destined to implode.

One of the many blaxploitation with the title prefix Black... (...Samurai, ...Caesar, ...Aphrodite), Gestapo also manages - rather uncomfortably - to incorporate the iconography of Nazism, bringing another of the popular sub-genre's of the exploitation market, that together make nazi-blaxploitation. "The People's Army", a vigilante group headed by General Ahmed (Rod Perry), are set up in Watts to protect black citizens in the inner city. After they run a white criminal organisation from the community, second in command Colonel Kojah (Charles Robinson), breaks the group in the middle to form his own, more fascistic group, indulging in money-making activities such as drug dealing, and orates for more direct, violent action.

Writer-director Lee frost (along with co-writer-producer Wes Bishop), has obviously, and incredibly insensitively, misinterpreted the black power movement in the late 1960's/'70's - particularly the Black Panthers - and presented it with Nazi iconography. It's an uncomfortable juxtaposition to see a group of black men congregated on a ghetto basketball pitch, dressed fully in the garments of the most vilified, ultra-racist political movement of the twentieth century. Why exactly would anyone (but particularly an ethnic minority), take on this most instantly recognisable of images?

There does seem to be an attempt to perhaps represent the opposing views of the two major iconic black figures of the 1960's. In Ahmed we have the message of non-violent protest from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whilst Kojah's view of violent actions mirrors the philosophy of Malcolm X, and his pronouncement of using violence in self-defence. But maybe I'm just reading into something that's not actually there. When the film isn't insulting its audience, it displays nothing new to an already lagging genre, and simply presents generic tropes: Blaxploitation was always criticised for perpetuating racial stereotypes, but this film could indeed be guilty of far more. With a series of scenes-we've-seen- before, such as the castration of a white man, after he raped a sister, the film also uses the contemporary necessities such as soft female nudity. Action scenes are played out with little excitement or even much vigorous movement, which along with the amateurish film making makes this film a totally dull squib. So... Hardly the "New Master Race," instead simply insulting to anyone who watches.

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