Jun 14 2006
Detroit 9000
Time for an installment of ‘a modern white guy’s take on ’70s black cinema‘ (for my introduction to the beloved ‘blaxplotation’ genre, have a read of my review of ‘Sweet Sweetback’s Badasssss Song’ here). Today it’s 1973’s ‘Detroit 9000‘. Now, as I do more of these film reviews, I find that the easy part seems to be the commentary about subtexts, message, moviemaking details and such, and the hard part for me is the summary. Often, I watch these late at night, and I’m not neceessarily taking notes. Here’s a quick summary from Blaxploitation.com:
$400,000 dollars in donations and jewelry is stolen by a masked gang from a fundraising dinner in honor of black congressman Aubrey Clayton. The case is given to veteran detective Danny Bassett, a complex character who has to support his mentally-ill wife. He is partnered with up-and-coming black detective Jesse Williams, a move that provokes Bassett’s resentment as he wants to take the credit for solving the case himself. Williams makes the initial investigation lead to an old acquintance, call girl Roby Harris, who provides crucial information about a homicide victim and a related operation for handling stolen goods. Roby is also in touch with pimp Ferdy, who she alerts that the police are on to him; this leads to her murder as his henchmen catch up with her. Williams arrives too late to prevent the fatal shots but Rody confesses while dying that she provided the vital information for the intial robbery after hearing about the fundraising dinner while turning a trick with Clayton. Bassett discovers that the fence for the goods is holed up in a cruise ship and substitutes himself for the gang member who was supposed to be taking the jewelry to the ship…
Ok, now with that out of the way, some background. This was one of those films that Quentin Tarantino, who has many times stated the influence of the blaxploitation genre on his own films, rereleased under his ‘Rolling Thunder Pictures’ line. He even gave it a brief cinematic release a few years ago. That would explain the high quality restoration. It is crisp and clear, and looks great.
The film stars Hari Rhodes and Alex Rocco. You’ll recognize Rocco as Moe Green, the mobster who got shot in the eye at the end of The Godfather. Now, as I get more into the genre, I seem to see two camps here. There is the over-the-top, super explotative kind of film such as Foxy Brown, replete with tons of stereotypes, T&A, violence, pimps and such, and then there’s the straight-ahead crime drama that they put the focus on black characters instead of white ones, and although racial issues are often touched upon, it is not the end-all be all focus of the film. Shaft could easily fall into this category, Shaft in Africa, probably not. And there are varying degrees between the two. Detroit 9000 leans towards the second example. Motivations of the police are always in question, and always framed in terms of race(as in all of these films). In terms of quality, this film is all over the map. Like many in this genre, it was mostly released in theaters targeting black audiences. The acting from the leads is exceptional and professional, the acting in some of the other characters is pretty bad. Lots of really fake looking blood. Not much else to say about the story, other than it was a pretty good crime drama, and the ending was good, because it left you with some questions as to the motivations of the white cop, Bassett, a guy struggling to stay an honest cop in the face of a personal crisis involving his crippled wife.
Now with me, the allure for these films is often the campy factor, as well as satisfying my obsession with time, meaning I really enjoy looking at the look of the period, and Detroit 9000 delivers on that. The gritty, shitty backdrop of early 70’s Detroit is often reminiscent of a third-world country (there is a particular chase scene that shows a lot of it in all of its abandoned ugliness). There’s the obligatory garishly dressed pimp (although none hold a candle to ‘George the Pimp’ in Coffy). The music was pretty good, alternating between typical jazz-funk of the period and some really great funk-gospel by a female band. The thing that does set this apart from some of the other in the genre is the lack of over-the-top-exploitation. Every once and a while, it stops feeling like a B-movie. It’s worth checking out. Plus, where else can you see a suit like this? -
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