Original Gangstas (1996)

Directed by Larry Cohen. Starring Fred Williamson, Jim Brown, Pam Grier, Paul Winfield, Christopher B. Duncan, Eddie Bo Smith Jr., Oscar Brown Jr., Isabel Sanford, Richard Roundtree, Ron O’Neal, Dru Down, Charles Napier, Kevin Watson, Godfrey Danchimah, Robert Forster, Wings Hauser, Timothy Lewis. [R]

It’s fun to see a bunch of the 70s blaxploitation icons reunite a couple decades later, but what a pity they weren’t given a better vehicle—something more profound or wistful would’ve been nice, or perhaps an “ultimate” homage/send-up to the bygone era of pimps, playas, private eyes, big bad mamas, and “the Man”. Instead, we get a thin story where a crime-plagued neighborhood in Gary, Indiana is ruled over by the tough Rebels gang, and when members kill an innocent youth over a petty beef and attack a local storeowner because he reported the license number of the gunman, old members of the gang—including the son (Williamson) of said storeowner—reconvene to set them straight (with force, of course). The veteran cast members all do what’s needed/expected from them in this action-crime programmer, but the violence is routine and naïve (anyone believe these upstart poseurs could rule over anything with an iron fist?), and the tone is too uncertain, trying to mix weighty inner city laments with juvenile plotting and bloodshed. Williamson co-produced.

51/100