| Superfly (1972) Cast:Ron O'Neal, Carl Lee, Sheila Frazier A pimp and drug dealer looks to go legit and to do so he needs one more job and there's a conspiracy to take him down in this disappointing blaxploitation flick. Superfly has some interesting elements, mainly O'Neal's performance and the story has potential to explore a drug dealer's life, but it instead has the whole "One last mission" cliche and therefore everything we've seen, we've seen before and far better. Superfly's biggest problem is that it's not nearly as interesting as it's reputation would indicate. In fact Black Caesar was far more fascinating, and I think the reason is because Superfly concentrates more on the cliches than the actual characters. O'Neal is great and he somehow manages to make his character a bad ass and sympathetic, but the film doesn't explore his plight enough and so seeing him go up against the usual racist cops and so on is all tiresome. What it also lacks is the action element which would make this more of a blaxploitation actioner, but we don't get it. I've never seen a flick that resists it's interesting elements more. In fact, it's bizarre how the film holds back from showing O'Neal in a negative light. Still the movie found it's audience and is a landmark of the genre. I still think it's not one of the best examples and that it's overrated. D.Gordon Parks**1/2 |