Friday Foster

"Friday Foster" - the reputation of this work is more legendary than the film itself. I was quite disappointed when I saw it for the first time, because it didn´t deliver the typical kickass madness you normally get from a Pam Grier movie! The storyline is tame, the forced political correctness is only pesky and the whole stuff lacks in violence and sex, so prepare for blaxploitation in its mildest form! If you want to be entertained somehow watch out for the performances of genre greats like Yaphet Kotto, Carl Weathers, Eartha Kitt, Scatman Crothers or Thalmus Rasulala! Their fine acting improves this average film considerably. Main actress Pam Grier is convincing in the lead, but she´s not that sexy and tough as she was in "Coffy" or "Foxy Brown"! A quite unspectacular film, nothing special at all!

Friday Foster (Pam Grier), an ex-model magazine photographer, goes to Los Angeles International airport to photograph the arrival of Blake Tarr, the richest black man in America... and things go awry.

I love blaxploitation films and I love Pam Grier (which is pretty much necessary given how much the two overlap). Here she is made out to be a very strong woman in a variety of ways -- head-strong, smart as a whip... and someone who sexually knows what they want (this is a fine line between "easy" and "determined", and Foster walks it well).

Is it the best of its kind? Probably not. But well worth a watch for fans of the genre, with some great supporting actors -- including Scatman Crothers, Eartha Kitt and Carl Weathers, among others. Unfortunately for us, this was Grier's final film with American International Pictures.

Jack Hill's brilliant 'Coffy' is one of the 1970s best exploitation movies and remains the definitive Pam Grier role. It's such a pity that within two years Grier was forced into making something as mediocre as 'Friday Foster'. It's no wonder he career quickly went down the toilet after lame movies like this and 'Sheba, Baby'! 'Coffy' is a classic revenge movie and actually had some element of realism. Hill's next collaboration with Grier 'Foxy Brown' stepped away from that, and I didn't enjoy it as much, but compared to this it's a masterpiece. In 'Friday Foster' Grier is getting even closer to 'Cleopatra Jones' territory, but without the fun and style of that movie or its sequel. This movie actually has one of the best supporting casts of any blaxploitation film, but even that fails to satisfy. Yaphet Kotto plays Grier's detective buddy, and Julius Harris is her boss. Plus there's Scatman Crothers ('Black Belt Jones'), Thalmus Rasulala ('Blacula'), Godfrey Cambridge ('Cotton Comes To Harlem'), Paul Benjamin ('Across 110th Street') and Carl Weathers ('Rocky'), as well as Eartha Kitt, Isaac the bartender from 'The Love Boat' (Ted Lange) and even inexplicably 'Gilligan's Island's Thurston Howell III (Jim Backus)! As much as I love Grier and Kotto, 'Friday Foster's paper thin plot didn't hold my interest for very long and I was bored way before the climactic shootout. I regard this and 'Truck Turner' (which funnily enough also co-stars Yaphet Kotto) as the two most disappointing blaxploitation movies I've seen. If you want to see Pam Grier at her best watch 'Coffy', then follow it up with 'Foxy Brown' and 'Jackie Brown'. All three movies wipe the floor with this limp effort.

Friday Foster is probably the most fun of all the 70's Pam Grier flicks. Though not as good overall as Coffy or Foxy Brown, both had a certain amount of serious content; not Foxy Brown. Here Pam's intrepid reporter discovers a dangerous plot to eliminate black leaders. She's aided by Yaphett Kotto, hunted by Carl Weathers, and along the way she runs into Scatman Crothers, the guy who played the villan in Bucktown and the hero in Blacula, one of the cast of Across 110th Street and the bartender from the Loveboat. The film is light, but very amusing...I recommend it for Pam Grier fans.

Sexiest black woman of all time Pam Grier kicks ass and looks great doing it. This film has everything you are looking for in a blaxploitation flick. Scatman Crothers and the bartender from the "Love Boat"; what else would you want? Great!