If you buy a 'soul cinema' movie you've never heard of from Poundland, then you've no right to expect Citizen Kane. And I didn't. Even so my already low expectations took a nosedive when the DVD began- I was watching a transfer from a poor quality VHS recording. Perhaps even from a Betamax, who knows? But, in a way, that crappiness was great. As a young teen, my movie viewing was almost entirely restricted to well-worn videos from the local rental store and this was like a trip back in time. Yes, I watched shite then too.
Lola Falana (Lady Cocoa) is a prisoner who has served eighteen months for contempt of court and, in return for turning state's evidence against her boyfriend (who is hoping to move into Las Vegas as a racketeer) she is granted 24 hours leave from her inexplicably decorated prison cell under police protection. In truth, I would have been unhappy with the protection offered as they are followed from the prison car-park along miles of deserted roads by two thugs in a pimpmobile and neither cop notices- this plot has more holes than a tennis racket. Lady Cocoa isn't fussed, though, she's more interested in the standards of artwork that the hotel have to offer (she's cultured, you see- she also quotes philosophy. And Janis Joplin) and ordering a series of meals that she never eats. During her 24 hours leave she is supposed to stay in a hotel room with her escorts but, while the senior officer is out of the room for no discernable reason, she persuades the rookie to take her down to the dress shop in the hotel foyer.
I'm going to digress for a moment and talk about the rookie. He's a Carl Weathers-type good looking black guy and is obviously the love interest. His character is fascinating- he is a beat patrol officer selected for his first plain-clothes job over many better-qualified men because he "knows how to take orders". This is one of four things that we know about him. The others are that he carries a 'rattlesnake skin-handled pistol' even though it is against regulations, that he was due to have an emergency amputation on a gangrenous leg in Vietnam but threatened to kill the surgeon who then changed his mind (fortuitously so, as there is no hint of a limp during the course of the movie) and, finally, that the lump of wood playing him shows less emotion than Bruce Lee's digitally superimposed photograph in that scene in Game of Death.
Okay, so where was I? Well Lola Falana- who is by miles the best thing in the movie and gives some pretty rancid dialogue far more credit than it deserves- has persuaded the cop to take her to the foyer. The condition of her temporary pass is that they give her whatever she wants- so long as it doesn't include leaving the hotel room- and so she demands all of the money her remaining escort has (this is his own money, by the way) to spend on clothes. So, he hands it over. It's twenty dollars. As this isn't enough he agrees that they go and gamble it at the (curiously empty) blackjack table. She places all of the cash on the first hand.
This happens 32 minutes into a 1 hour 40 minute movie. And at this point, the DVD gave up altogether- in both of the machines I tried. I can only surmise that the disc refused to go any further in protest at how craptacular the movie was. Good decision. 1/10 - that point was for Lola Falana. She deserved better.
And is this the only blaxploitation film ever where even the soundtrack (which they forgot to add to a couple of scenes) really sucked? Lalo Schifrin's 'Dirty Harry' intro would turn in its grave if it heard the wahwah-ed up imitation used intermittently here.
