Black Dynamite (2009)

Spoof films haven‘t exactly been anticipated with admirable gusto from audiences recently, but who can blame them when most Spoof films are made by the sultans of shit, Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer. That’s right, the fuck-tards who made the Scary Movie series, Date Movie, Epic Movie, Disaster Movie, Meet the Spartans and Vampires Sucks, all of which are about as entertaining as being stabbed with a knife made of salt and hepatitis. Each of their films are just terrible and unfunny; what they think is a clever comedic spoof of something is just a pop culture reference with a dick and/or fart and/or sex and/or MILF joke, also known as ‘unfunny Family Guy sketch’. And because each film made ridiculous amounts of money (some make triple their budget), those two assassins of comedy have a poisonous grip on the Spoof genre, so it is no surprise that most Spoof films just fly under the radar of audiences for fear of being the same as the cinematic abortions of Friedberg and Seltzer. A fact that is a shame for Black Dynamite, because it is a brilliant and funny Spoof film that completely trumps Friedberg and Seltzer’s entire filmography.

Black Dynamite is a spoof (and sometimes-loving homage) to the Blaxploitation genre, a subgenre of Exploitation films. Exploitation films were the classic films that centred on exploiting certain lurid subject matters like sex, violence, romance, Nazism, etc. Exploitation films have existed since the ‘30s as ‘cautionary tale’ films to warn the youth of America the dangers of drugs, premarital sex and homosexuals, but the Exploitation films we know and love didn’t come around until the early ’60s. The best known subgenres are the Slasher films (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween), Nazisploitation films (Love Camp 7, Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS), Splatter films (Blood Feast, the Evil Dead series) and, my eternal favourite, Blaxploitation (Shaft, Sweet Sweetback‘s Baadasssss Song). Blaxploitation films were targeted at Black audiences and the usual formula was a badass Black protagonist, who would usually receive aid from a White character in authority, trying to stop criminals through both cunning and violence. The constant theme in Blaxploitation that makes it an enduring example of awesome is the use of funk and soul in the soundtrack, with some giving the protagonist their own theme song. Can you dig it?

Our hero of the hour is Black Dynamite (Michael Jai White); a mean motherfucker who’s superbad, a Vietnam veteran and a former CIA agent who was the best CIA agent the CIA had. The plot has Black Dynamite search whoever was responsible for his brother Jimmy’s death. With the help of the local Black militia and their handsome leader Saheed (Phil Morris), Black Dynamite learns of government intervention in Jimmy’s death. After learning from his former partner and Vietnam buddy, O’Leary (Kevin Chapman) that Jimmy was an undercover CIA agent, Black Dynamite is reinstated into the CIA with his licence to kill. With the help of his friend Bullhorn (Byron Minns), a character who speaks mostly in rhyme, Saheed and the token ambiguous homosexual Cream Corn (Tommy Davidson), he is able to fight back at the Man, the mafia who are spreading drugs to orphanages and the Fiendish Dr. Wu (Roger Yuan), master of kung-fu treachery. Soon, Black Dynamite discovers a scheme that comes from the top, and I mean the tippity-top, that will devastate all brothers. Can you dig it?

Most of the film’s humour comes from making fun of the badness and incompetence of most Exploitation films (Not fart and sex jokes): stilted exposition, bad production errors, bad fight chorography, strange acting and gratuitous nudity. Now, you might think that as a logical fallacy, since anything that is supposed to be intentionally wrong won’t be as funny or really work, in Black Dynamite however, that is its comedic strength; like it’s making fun of those clichés and how sometimes they are inserted haphazardly (Again, something Friedberg and Seltzer don’t understand).  Like how Black Dynamite has a traumatising ‘Nam flashback after the provocation of O’Leary telling two extras that Black Dynamite used a trick that saved his ass and explaining how he carried it out, for no reason. Or one part where a Black militia member spontaneously talks about how he will get an idyllic life when the ‘war’ is over, talking about picket fences and having children and even providing a picture of his sweetheart when we all know it’s just inserted to make his death more dramatic and that’s what it’s making fun of. Even some parts allude to the film actually being a film, if that makes sense, like characters reading their stage directions or one scene where an outtake happened that was quickly cut with a second take, were the previous bulkier actor being replaced by a skinnier and smaller actor. Therefore, it really has its tongue in cheek.

Of course, the soundtrack requires special mention since that was one of the defining elements of Blaxploitation films. Black Dynamite has the right combination of funk and soul with no unnecessary and completely out-of-place rap song (You know what I mean, Friedberg and Seltzer). Most of is used as background music, and sometimes just appears at random. There are some lyrical songs (well, four); two are describing what is happening on screen; another is a song for the short opening title, so we do not get to hear the whole song. However, the most memorable and awesome has to be Black Dynamite’s theme, ‘Dynomite’. Well, more the song’s leitmotif or chorus; Whenever Black Dynamite appears or does something awesome, the soundtrack just blasts with “Dynomite, dynomite!” It is greatly reminiscent of ‘Theme from Shaft’ and it is just so damn catchy and awesome. You want it to play whenever you defenestrate taunting children. And it is such a shame that this film came out after the deaths of James Brown, Isaac Haynes, Barry White and Marvin Gaye, because they would have been perfect for this film.

Black Dynamite is, as I have mentioned multiple times, a cut above all the Spoof films of Friedberg and Seltzer; it makes fun of the genre of Blaxploitation and Exploitation, making fun of the tropes and clichés without resorting to sex or toilet jokes. Buy the DVD, buy the soundtrack, and buy the T-shirt because this film proves to us that the Spoof genre is not yet dead, just brutally sodomised every year by two dickholes who do not know what satire is.

I’m Random Internet Critic and I criticise it because I can dig it.