Lady Cocoa

Oh how I wanted to like this movie.

It has all the ingredients to be great. Charismatic lead actress, cool name, main theme tune. A good set up for lots of action.

We could have had another Foxy Brown here with Lady Cocoa.

But alas, it was not to be.

Because Lady Cocoa herself is such an insufferable, awful, loud-mouthed know-it-all that within 30 minutes I was wishing she'd just get shot already.

Rarely have I seen such an unlikeable main character in a Blaxploitation movie.

Lola Falana has the acting chops and charm to be an excellent lead. But the script writers confused arrogance for confidence, quoting philosophy like it's scripture for intelligence, and a nasty mean-streak a mile wide for charm.

No wonder we never got a Lady Cocoa sequel. No one in the entire world would ever want to see this awful character ever again.

Of all the crappy blaxploitation films I've seen in my day, this is definitely one of them. Talk about poor film making, Lady Cocoa looks like it was shot by a bunch of high school kids.

Here's a short list of things that make this movie suck:

1. The screen changes colors repeatedly, probably from leaving the film cans sitting out in the sun or something. It reminds me of something shot in the early 1900's. One second everything will be completely purple, the next it will be green, followed by orange, then black and white. Even when the color is correct (which isn't often) the characters look totally illuminated, making the entire room glow. This is the first film I've ever seen that was physically painful to watch.

2. The sound is awful. There is a high pitched squeal the entire movie. I tried the disc on two DVD players and two TV's and it was still there. The boom mic gets smacked around a lot to, usually making more noise than it actually records. Thankfully, it saves you from having to hear the awful dialogue, or in the case of Mean Joe, lack there of.

3. The story lags and lags and lags. There is absolutely no action in this movie until the 73rd minute, much like Matt Cimber's previous work, The Black Six. Up until then, I was under the impression this was some type of romantic comedy.

4. Every thing in Lady Cocoa is completely illogical. Especially the ending. I supposed I should be grateful this one at least had an ending (director's previous movie just turned off after awhile).

SUMMARY: Sucks.

Another extreme cheapo blaxploit.... Mean Joe Green, who I primarily remember for his enthusiatic endorsement of Coca-cola in the 80's, plays a hit-man flunkie for a pimp/drug dealer, and though because of his semi-celebrity status he is given top billing, he was apparently not trusted to pull off even one speaking line. Not one word the whole movie. Pretty incredible. This is basically crap - hard to watch unless you enjoy very bad slow movies. Lola Falana seems to be quite the firecracker, but this story of her one day of freedom before she testifies on her ex-boyfriend (the aforementioned pimp/dealer ) for the FBI doesn't hold anyone's interest.

To me there was some real confusion (mainly due to bad editing, scripting and directing) on whether or not the fat old cop was straight or corrupt.

The only redeeming element of "Lady Cocoa" is Lola Falana, playing the title character: she is beautiful, sexy and has a wonderful smile. Other than her, the film is a bargain-basement production with a totally static plot - for more than an hour, the story is confined into one hotel. And don't think this works in favor of any suspense, either; the fact that the two hit men who are on the heroes' trail never utter a single word might have been intended to make them look unique, but their actions only make them look inept and ineffective. Things are made even worse by the worn print, scratchy sound and often inaudible dialogue of the DVD version that Brentwood came up with: a pure disgrace. (*)

No one was hotter than Lola Falana in the early-mid '70's. She could be seen on The Flip Wilson Show, The Ben Vereen Show, Johnny Carson and doing guest spots on "FBI" and "Streets of San Francisco". So cashing in on the blaxplotation boom wasn't a bad idea for this sultry song bird--or was it?

"Lady Cocoa" is about a lady who gets a 24 hour day pass out of jail in exchange for testifying in court against her hustler boyfriend, played by a guy that you always see on shows of the 70's. He's that guy that you don't know his name but you always see him playing a guest spot like a door to door sales man on "Good Times" or some nerdy guy on "Barney Miller". When I saw who was playing the big bad boyfriend, I said, "THAT guy? Oh geez." At any rate, Lady Cocoa is under the custody of a big burly D.A. man and a good looking cop. It is apparent that the writers tried to create some tit for tat, playful bantering between the spit fire Cocoa and the straight faced "by the book" cop, creating romantic tension between them. WRONG.

First of all, Lady Cocoa behaved like a regular twit. Often yelling and screaming and constant complaining. My goodness, shouldn't she be grateful that she gets 24 hours away from the slammer? Wouldn't it be more likely that she would rather be enjoying cable t.v, room service and perhaps the massage benefits that i'm sure the swanky Las Vegas hotel had to offer? And the her straight laced cop love interest was, well..how can I put it--stiff-as-a-board. Total mismatch, Which brings me to another point.

This movie had a few loose ends. Well, more than a few. I could have sworn that when a person turns states evidence, they are exonerated from all crimes and released from jail and placed into protective custody. But in Lady Cocoa's case, she only gets a 24 hour get out of jail card? Wow, that's gotta stink.

Okay, so a couple of thugs are wise to her plans and where abouts and is out to kill her. So she has to try to stay alive long enough to fully enjoy her well earned 24 hours of freedom. The back drop of this movie is appropriately enough, Las Vegas. What better movie location for no other than "The Queen of Las Vegas", Lola Falana. What got me through the horrible lighting, direction and sound was Lola herself. She's fun to watch if you can get past the incredibly suckie dialoge, although some lines were kind of funny.

Out of the many blaxploitation films i've seen, I'd say that Lady Cocoa was tolerable because of the brief cat and mouse sequence at the end. And of course, the fabulous Lady Lola herself. I'd recommend you see this film if you're into black movies of the 70's. but please, don't expect too much from this one, you'll only get your feelings hurt.