Justiceiros de Rua

Original Gangstas (1996)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

Blaxploitation in the 90's has a street gang killing off people so the old guys (Fred Williamson, Jim Brown, Pam Grier, Ron O'Neal, Richard Roundtree) come to take the streets back. This all-star extravaganza remains a lot of fun like those films of the 1970's but this one here also has a message and asks a lot of serious questions. Whereas those 70's flicks simply blamed white folks, this one here goes a lot deeper in its message and even throws blame towards those earlier films. A lot of interesting ideas are brought up here, although we still get some mindless, if fun, action. Larry Cohen wrote a brilliant script and the performers all do a fine job. Robert Forster also stars.

This is a powerful film and I hope you see it. Caught it here recently on THIS TV Network, so likely it will come around again.

The opening scenes of Gary, Indiana present as an arresting message of what happens to prosperity when do-gooders, Wowsers, Uplifters, Eco-messiahs, Carrie Nations, lunatics, and other chronic nuisances chase industry and jobs away in the name of saving something or other. Plants close and shortly rust. People quit their homes and leave them to face nature's relentless onslaught along with the thugs who move in and make them into Den's of iNiquity.

Richard Roundtree, Fred Williamson, Ron 'Superfly' O'Neil, they're all here along with the great Pam Grier, Jim Brown - Captain Anders in 1968's "Ice Station Zebra", along with the late and very much missed Paul Winfield who evinced touching cinemagic in 'Green Eyes'.

Even if you don't enjoy films in general, let alone the Blaxploitation genre, anyone who's into UE, Urban Exploration, sometimes called Industrial Archaeology - and if you're not, you should be - you'll swoon as serial images of one decrevalent building after another after oxydizing blast furnace after abandoned ten storeys-high heat stoves march across your screen. Yes, Gary, Indiana in "Original Gangstas" is prime Urban Exploration territory.

The film's message is poignant as ever: Don't incite people, particularly those wise in years, to righteous indignation. It's an unwise practice to do so.

Be sure to watch for the David Lynch-esquire visual anachronisms, e.g. the film takes place in 1996, yet many police cruisers hail from the 80s as well as the 90s. The Gangstas drive cars whose model years span a fifty year period, thus keeping you off balance until the stunning conclusion.

The wry humor, "there goes the neighborhood", will catch you off guard as well, and send you tumb-bumbling off the couch, onto the floor, and scurrying to your video store for your own copy of "Original Gangstas". If you don't own a copy of this, you should. Now. So do it. Now.

Paul Vincent Zecchino

Manasota Key, Florida

11 October, 2010

It has always amazed me how the star of this film, Fred Williamson, has gone to such great lengths to badmouth this flick and the work of his former friend, writer-director Larry Cohen. I've read it and I've heard it on DVD audio commentaries--"Hiring Larry for Original Gangstas was a mistake," Williamson says. Yet he has nothing but praise for his own work as a writer-director.

Is the Hammer on crack, or what? This is a very slick, very cool little low budget action flick that shows the old time stars to great advantage. Cohen did a great job. In fact, if you took all the good parts from every movie that Fred Williamson produced and directed himself and put them together, the film you'd end up with would still be 1/100th the film this one is (of course a compilation of "good parts" from Hammer's self-directed flicks would only be 15 minutes long).

I love Fred Williamson. His pre-1976 movies like "Black Caesar" and "Bucktown" are classics, and I like him as a performer. I'd LOVE to see him work in more mainstream movies, as a lead. But the man has only been in three halfway decent films in the past quarter century: "Starsky and Hutch," "From Dusk Til Dawn," and "OG." And "OG" is the best of the three in my opinion. His self produced-directed efforts, his Italian-Euro cheapazoid flicks--they ALL rank as some of the absolute worst movies of all time.

So, don't listen to the star of the show, just watch the movie. "Original Gangstas" is a solid flick.

This is something like a re-union party of the so-called blaxploitation film stars, which shows the whole world that those guys and ladies are still sexy and strong enough to teach some lessons to the young, disrespectful punks in the neighborhood of the city of Gary, Indiana. That's all about the story, which is as uninspired as any B-action flicks. "Original" gangstas come back to town, to fight against the "new" gangsters that rule the street with terror. The charm of the film lies in the cast, which looks a dream team for any fans of the 1970's blaxploitaion films. Here they are back in good form: Fred Williamson ("Black Caesar"), Jim Brown ("Slaughter"), Pam Grier ("Coffy"), Richard Roundtree ("Shaft") and Ron O'Neil ("Superfly") and you got also players like Robert Forster (who in the following year makes a smashing collaboration with Pam Grier in "Jackie Brown") and Wings Hauser in his very unlikely role. It is a gift from the heaven for the movie fans like me.

Overall rating: 7 out of 10.

A veteran cast make this update of the blaxploitation genre worth watching. Fred Williamson (Black Caesar), Jim Brown (Slaughter), Pam Grier (Coffy/Foxy Brown), Richard Roundtree (Shaft) and Ron O'Neal (Superfly) join forces to combat the newer, younger version of the same gang they formed some twenty years prior. Not enough Roundtree or O'Neal and barely enough action but a decent enough entry. For fans of the genre.