S.O.S. Black Guns

A white Detroit detective (Alex Rocco) has to investigate a heist at a political fundraiser and he's none too happy about it. He's even less happy when he's forced to partner up with a black detective (Hari Rhodes). Despite their differences, the two cops work well together and get to the bottom of things.

Alex Rocco and Hari Rhodes are both good. Beautiful Vonetta McGee isn't on screen nearly enough but has an important part. The minor roles are played by a variety of actors, some of whom seem like complete amateurs who recite their lines robotically. The actress playing Rocco's wife has one scene and she uses it to give a lesson on terrible acting.

Mostly straight but there are some unintentional moments of hilarity. Such as a car moving at slow speed driving into a parked car, causing both vehicles to instantly explode like they were packed with dynamite. Or an older white reporter seriously asking the Chief of Police "Do you think it was a honky caper?" There's also a scene that rips off Dirty Harry's "do you feel lucky punk" scene. The dialogue is different but the scene is too similar to be a coincidence considering Dirty Harry came out a couple years before this and that scene was an instant classic.

It's a good blaxploitation flick. I enjoyed all of the Detroit locations, including many now-demolished buildings. It's obviously a limited movie, in terms of budget, but it's still entertaining.

Not your typical Blaxploitation movie. I rented it because Vonetta McGee is in it but was pleasantly surprised. You should see the top tier Blaxploitaion movies (Fred,Pam,Jim,Isaac) first to appreciate this one. Definitely a sleeper.

Detroit 9000 is a lesser known and very underrated heist thriller that somewhat falls under the blaxsploitation genre. No matter how you want to classify this Detroit 9000 packs a punch to the gut. Very well acted with Alex Rocco and Hari Rhodes as a pair of cops working on a high profile case. The film is very gritty and shows political corruption, racism and a whole lot of violence with high powered shootouts ending with lots of carnage, blood and lead left in it's wake. The score by Luchi DeJesus is very cool and stylish giving it that funky 70's flavor and I think this was quite well acted and well made as a whole. Scatman Crothers appears in a brief but memorable role and along with lots of familiar faces that worked in films at the time gets the job done on this very tough and action packed movie. Thumbs way up on this one.

Blaxploitation but sophisticated blaxploitation, if you will. Right from the bat you'll notice a little deeper characterization and more intricate plot mixed in with the jive music and bloody violence and for the most part, it works well. Some of the story does bog down the pace at times but not enough to cause any major problem. Seeing that this is one of the films released under Tarantino's Rolling Thunder company, the fact that Reservoir Dogs shares a few traits with Detroit 9000 should come as no surprise. However, Detroit 9000 took a few lines of dialogue from Dirty Harry, so I guess that's just the nature of the beast.

I would leave college early everyday just to find what Detroit street they would be filming at that particular day. It was an exciting time seeing such local personalities as Dick Purtan, Woody Willis, Laura Lee, Mike Lucci of the Detroit Lions, John Nichols, and the one and only Martha Jean "The Queen" Steinberg. This was a great time for me and for the city of Detroit. I have a copy of this film and watch it whenever I can. A must see movie for all Detroiters. A favorite of Quinton Tarrentino.