Blaxploitation films have a reputation that I am fairly aware of even though I have only really seen one of the real thing, namely Shaft. And even then, I am probably more familiar with Shaft‘s familiar theme song than anything else. However, HBO Max did have 1972’s Super Fly on there, at least until the end of the month, and I was at least a little surprised to learn the main character is a cocaine dealer and not a pimp since that was the sort of character that was perhaps a stand-in for Youngblood Priest in the parody film I’m Gonna Git You Sucka. That may be due to the fact that the character, played by Antonio Fargas, was named “Flyguy” and all. But no, the lead character here is not a pimp.
But in a bit of trivia I don’t know that I could put anywhere else, there is a connection to Shaft in that the director of Super Fly, Gordon Parks Jr, is the son of Shaft director Gordon Parks Sr.
As stated, cocaine dealer Youngblood Priest (Ron O’Neal) is the kind of man you just don’t mess with. The movie opens by showing why. Two men get together and plot to rob Priest, only for Priest to chase one down in what could be the first Parkour chase in American cinema, with Priest even effortlessly leaping a chain-link fence his wouldbe robber had to clumsily climb over, only for Priest to find him, beat him, and take back his stolen goods in front of a screaming woman and her young children. What does this have to do with the rest of the plot? Nothing as near as I can make out. It’s there to set up Priest as a badass and nothing more.
The plot, when it gets moving in what was only about a 90 minute movie, is basically that Priest, a man with a white and a Black mistress, wants to go straight. He just needs one last big score to do it. In the meantime, he’s practicing his karate and gettin’ it on with various women. He knows which lower level crony he needs to set up and how to get the job done. And he has to watch out for The Man, who unsurprisingly is a high-ranking cop. Really, this movie hit a lot of the expected beats for the genre, but it also helped invent them, so that perhaps isn’t that big of a problem.
What I did find problematic is the movie’s pacing. I said above the runtime is only about 90 minutes, but there are scenes in here that seem to just run long for no clear purpose. Priest and his one girlfriend have some fun in a hot tub. That seems to involve some funky music while getting close-ups of things like an elbow or his chest hair. That felt like it went on for a while. A montage of shots showing Priest’s, shall we say, satisfied customers also takes up time. It does allow director Gordon Parks Jr to show off his photography skills–both he and his father started as photographers before becoming film directors–but as for the narrative flow of the movie, it doesn’t help.
That, in a nutshell, describes a lot of what’s going on here. There are a lot of good elements, most of them in the form of the movie’s overall look and style. For example, Curtis Mayfield wrote up a great original score. But then something would come along and grind the movie to a halt, like a scene where we get to see Mayfield and his band perform a new song. I started to wonder if there was enough story for a feature length movie. While it is obviously a low budget feature in many ways, that doesn’t mean it couldn’t have better pacing that would take advantage of what could have been a much better movie.
Grade: C
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