Black Gunn (1972)
9/10
Gunn Hits The Target!
9 April 2006
Jim Brown deadpans his way through Black Action Film heaven. All the touchstones are here: The Mafia, a Black Panthers rip-off, drugs, trashy whores, nasty pimps, jittery dealers and even sweatier addicts, fist fights, gun play, drug dealers, revenge killings, psycho hit men, racial slurs, car chases, stolen cars, and explosions. Even more than that, plenty of early Seventies atmosphere here to enjoy: giant sedans, huge lapels, enormous hair, used car dealers, bowling, black revolutionaries, sexy stewardesses, and lots of fuzz guitar, tremolo and wah-wah pedals on all the music.

Jim Brown is a schmoove nightclub owner (this is an adult nightclub, kids, where the immaculately coiffed adults eat steak, drink whiskey and slow-dance to overproduced soul easy listening music) who's cooler than a cucumber popsicle. His uncool little brother is in with BAG, the Black Action Group, who get deep into it when they steal money and ledger books from THE MOB.

The greasy mobsters aren't gonna put up with that, so they put out the word: find those lousy #$$%*#* and kill 'em. But little brother hid the ledgers at Gunn's nightclub/suave bachelor pad. So they kill the brother anyway, and that REALLY makes Gunn mad. It's all-out war now, and Gunn has to avoid both the Fuzz and BAG on his one-man war of vengeance. There are some slow spots here and there, but the action sequences make up for the few slack bits. Brown is not going to be doing heavy drama anytime soon, but he does what he does here extremely well. Highly recommended for fans of Black Action Cinema.
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