scott sanders' BLACK DYNAMITE (2009)

it's tempting to underrate Black Dynamite because it is in one sense little more than a canny pastiche, painstakingly and to great effect re-creating the 'tude and 'sthetic of 70s soul cinema but necessarily sidestepping originality and even (depending on how you define it) sincerity. it is both impossibly straight-faced and a series of sly winks, and as its reputation builds it will be referred to by people who throw words around as a parody, or a spoof; it's neither of those things, but the mistake is understandable. Black Dynamite is indulgent novelty, and there's no getting around that.

but that doesn't stop it from being one of the year's funniest, most entertaining movies, and almost parenthetically one of its best. the core is Michael Jai White, who co-wrote the screenplay and stars as its titular badasssss, a Vietnam vet, ex-CIA, occasionally nunchuck-wielding soul brother whose quest to avenge his brother's murder pits him against drug dealers, cops, junkie orphans ("I will shake this poisonous shit out of your little smacked-up body if I have to!" "Black Dynamite stop, we've tried that, nothing works"), pimps and the Fiendish Dr. Wu on his way to fight The Man himself. it would probably be a big silly mess if White (and his script!) weren't so pitch-perfect, in both his hard-assed, super-cool demeanor (he does not so much imitate Blaxsploitation heroes as create the Last Great one) and his considerable kung-fu excellence.

but it's Sanders that really sells it: from the film's uproarious, awkwardly propulsive tone to the framing, texture and "production gaffes" (one scene sees a character bitch-slap another in mid-fight, at which point the slapee dejectedly breaks character and is replaced frames later by a different actor) he has made a film that would pass flawlessly for the sort of films it mimics were it not just a liiiiiiittle too smart for its own good. (Sanders is an encouraging new force in the dire world of black cinema, not matter how much Black Dynamite's ingrained (pop)cultural politics may seem to trivialize it.) it is above all else an example of how to goof on something dear to you: with wit, definitive knowledge and zero self-consciousness. despite a criminally minor theatrical run, Black Dynamite is an unmistakable success, and doesn't have long to cool its heels in obscurity.