The Monkey Hu$tle

This film has an untraditional style and format. The closest I could compare it to is CAR WASH, as both are not about a particular person but about a group of people living in a ghetto neighborhood. However, unlike CAR WASH, this isn't a comedy though there are a few mildly funny moments. Plus, while CAR WASH is not for everyone's taste, I liked the film and found many of the characters likable.

This non-traditional narrative might bother many, as the film does seem rather disjoint. Plus, given that most of the people aren't all that likable (and several are very unlikable), the film isn't one I'd recommend you watch. It's really a shame because this style COULD have worked very well....with likable and more interesting people. The folks in this film are mostly hustlers--out of work young adults who will lie, cheat and steal to make a few bucks. Their idol is Yaphet Kotto--in an odd role as a master film-flam man.

The bottom line is that this just isn't a very good film--with an inferior script, lousy characters and a lackluster musical score. There are many, many Black-American films from the 70s that are so much better and more interesting than this dull mess.

I think that Monkey Hustle is a very misunderstood film, mostly because of a misleading ad campaign that tried (and still tries, via the VHS and DVD packaging) to sell it as a plot-driven scam flick, a black version of The Sting. That's not what this is. Daddy Fox, the con man character is only a character in an ensemble. This film is much more like Car Wash--a group of disparate characters in a common place interacting. Except in this case the common place is a neighborhood instead of a place of business. Although "Monkey Hustle" is a term coined by Daddy Fox in an early scene,it doesn't only refer to con games--it also refers to the way all the characters are hustling for love, for success, or for respect. The direction is loose and the performances are almost universally winning. Yaphett Kotto is amusingly verbose as Fox and Rudy Ray Moore is hilariously--and purposefully-- over the top as numbers runner Goldie.

Now, I'm not saying that this was a great film, but it is a lot better than its rep, and certainly not the total artistic failure it is often represented as. One thing that holds the film back is that it does seem to be lacking a few necessary scenes near the end that would explain how Goldie and the Fox stopped the Freeway expansion. There are scenes that obviously lead up to that missing climax (with lots of knowing winks and secret smiles), and scenes after it is announced that the freeway project has been canceled (characters giving each other the "high sign")--but nothing about how the heroes made it happen!

However, plot is not a big part of this kind of movie. No, the most important element "Car Wash" had that "Monkey Hustle" lacked was a really great soundtrack of classic tunes to tie things together. "Monkey Hustle" is noticeably music-lite for its genre. There is one decent tune--the title track--and it gets played a lot. But lots of scenes cry out for music, and the ones that get it have to make due with endless variations of this same theme. I predict that if AIP had sprung for a funky soundtrack like the producers of Car Wash did, and the filmmakers had come up with even five or seven more minutes of action to explain the ending, "Monkey Hustle" would be seen as a minor classic of the 70's black film era. It never would have been a "Cooley High," but it could have at least been a little brother to "Car Wash" (and it is a HELL of a lot better than "Thank God It's Friday").

This movie is worth renting just to see Goldie and his Goldie Mobile! Not a bad plot, and the song "Monkey Hustle' is a riot!

One has to remember, that with the introduction of Shaft and Superfly, Hollywood churned out one blaxploitation film after the other, whether the script and acting succeeded or not. During the 70's, at the height of the blaxploitation film era, the genre was completely plot-driven rather than character-driven. Ask yourself how many times a neighborhood could be saved from some type of demolition? How many times could someone come up with just the right lottery numbers? Take this film for what it is, something lighthearted that introduced actor/director Thomas Carter, II, Debbi Morgan of All My Children, Charmed, The Hurricane, Rosalind Cash of The Omega Man, General Hospital, and Tales from the Hood, Randy Brooks of Another World and Generations. And, of course, Rudy Ray Moore. These actors had to eat, support families, and it was training ground for some later great work.

If a white producer and a white screenwriter got together to produce a film for a black audience anytime before the bicentennial, then this would be the product. The language and expressions are so exaggerated as to be excessively comic, then again perhaps this was the intended effect (though I doubt it).

I'm reminded of the final scenes of Robert Townsend's "Hollywood Shuffle," where he plays a struggling actor who just got the lead in a low budget blaxpoitation production "Jive Time Jimmy's Revenge." Townsend is supposed to have an uncredited bit part in "The Monkey Shuffle," and one is almost certain that he was referencing the ridiculous direction given the actors in "The Monkey Shuffle." A true homage to demonstrate how shallow cross cultural understanding was at the time. An understanding made clear in this film.

With lines like "You sho-is bad!" and "Yo my main man!" one can't help but wonder how the guys at MST3K missed "The Monkey Shuffle" (probably because of the race angle; it being bad form and all to make fun of a black, or blaxpoitation, film). The story revolves around a band of two-bit hustlers, shuckin' and jivin' their way to the big time. Only they're supposedly stymied by a municipal urban renewal plan, that bulldozes their base of operations. A plan that's supposed to put a highway through the neighborhood. Too bad this wasn't played up in the film, because if you miss the few minutes of dialogue and other exposition given to the plot you'll miss it entirely. Not that you really need to know it, because it's hardly significant in the story.

There's lots of character development, but it's all one dimensional. The haircuts and costumes are laughable, and the plot doesn't come into play until the end of the film. Much of the movie is spent exploring the petty exploits of the "players," and "players" in training, and does nothing to develop either plot or story.

Well, it's been a while since I've heard expressions like "sho 'nuff" or "turkey" or even "sucka," so from a linguistics point of view it was kind of fun seeing paleolithic jive talk in action, but beyond that there's not much to offer here.

The film itself is supposed to be some kind of comedy, but I found myself hard pressed to laugh at anything other than the dated speech, costumes, and extreme mannerisms given by the characters.

If you want to see Blaxpoitation, then rent one of the better known Pam Grier, Jim Kelley, or Shaft films. Your brain'll thank you for it.