Black Dynamite

Spoofs are maybe the hardest subgenre of comedy to pull off. The Zucker brothers perfected it throughout the 80's with Airplane!, Top Secret!, Police Squad, and The Naked Gun. But at some point after that, the genre degraded into The Scary Movie series and even worse. They became a mindless string of fart jokes and obvious references to the previous year's blockbusters (usually with farts added). Then along came 2009's Black Dynamite, by Scott Sanders, a pitch perfect spoof of the Blaxploitation flicks from the early 70's.

Black Dynamite follows the mold set by the Zuckers with Airplane by having the actors play the movie completely seriously and letting the gags arise around them. In addition to that, it lovingly inhabits the genre that it's mocking, by including cheap production values, intentionally bad edits, and a hilariously on-the-nose soundtrack. In that way, it reminds me of the British TV show, Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, in my opinion the best and funniest intentional replication of bad filmmaking ever made, something that is much, MUCH more difficult to believably achieve than it sounds.

Michael Jai White (formerly of the terrible Spawn movie from the 90's) co-wrote and stars as the titular hero, a kung-fu ladies' man with a license to kill. When his brother is killed over drugs, he makes it his goal to track down the people bringing the drugs into the city. In the process he uncovers a deeper conspiracy that goes all the way to the top.

White is hilarious in the role. He really is impressive. He gets that for a movie like this to work, you have to play it straight. Never let the audience know you're joking.

I once heard an interview with "Weird Al" Yankovic, discussing his cameo in the original The Naked Gun. While on set, he believes that he actually witnessed the point when Leslie Nielson, so great in Airplane! and Police Squad, realized that he was being funny. He started playing the role differently after that, which was evident in the Naked Gun sequels and the million other spoofs Nielson became identified with throughout the years.

Anyway, this movie doesn't do that. I hear there's a sequel on the way, and I hope these guys understand why this one works so well.

I'm going to wrap this up now because I don't want to spoil any of the surprises Black Dynamite has in store. The jokes fly by at a rapid clip, making it one of the rare comedies that really does benefit from repeat viewing. This is a movie I plan on owning. A