THE MOVIE
We begin with a bounty hunter (Lee Van Cleef) having a bit of a standoff with some wanted man that he has tracked down. Dude tries to deny he is the man in question, and then some friends of his or something are like "We don't take kindly to bounty hunters around here". So you'd rather have criminals? They draw, Bounty Hunter wins - story over?
Pike (Jim Brown) and his boss, Morgan, are in town to sell cattle. They cross paths with the bounty hunter, and he and Pike make some serious eye contact. Foreboding?
Anyways, they are in town to sell some cattle and take the money back to their hometown, which is actually in Mexico, I think. Morgan suddenly drops dead, but not before making Pike promise him he will deliver the money to their hometown. Word gets out that there is a solo black man riding around with $86,000 and all the bad dudes in the area are keen to take him out and get that money for themselves - including our bounty hunter from earlier and a couple of losers that worked for Morgan. A dandy by the name of Tyree (Fred Williamson) gets wind of all this and, after helping Pike fight off a few low-lives, they make a deal that Tyree will help him cross the border - but after that, he will fight him for the money.
Along the way, they rescue a woman named Catherine and her friend, Kashtok, from a group of bandits that have attacked her group and murdered her husband. Kashtok is, in fact, my main Jim Kelly - sans moustache! He is a Native American. With no tongue - so he can not speak. Huh...
He can still do karate, though.
So they all travel together to the Mexican border, battling off attack after attack - including some church group coming after them with a machine gun. Catherine and Pike talk a lot about redemption and second chances in life. More foreboding? Anyways, they eventually make it to the border - where Tyree lives up to his end of the deal by getting into a rumble with Pike for the money. But before they can decide on a winner, the bounty hunter turns up with a veritable army of bandits. They have one last standoff for a winner takes all kind of deal. I guess...
REACTION
Well, there wasn't really much to say about this film. It was fine, and certainly not awful, but I can't help but feel like there was something missing. It came across as somewhat of a low-budget made for TV western.
And I'm not sure how I felt about Fred Williamson and his Louisiana drawl... But what actually worked for the film was Jim Brown; dude had some kind of earnest quality that makes you see him as a good guy, so you always had that trust that he was doing the right thing. And also, I was surprised that race wasn't such a big plot point. Sure, the N word got thrown around a little, but mostly by Tyree; no one seemed to make too big of a deal about Morgan's right-hand man being African-American. Which was somewhat unexpected. So yeah, I came in expecting some type of Blaxploitation Western, but really got more of a Western that just happened to have a couple of Blaxploitation heroes in the lead.
JIM KELLY
I'll say again. He was portraying a Native American. Who could not speak. But knew karate. He still didn't do enough butt-whooping for me - and he wore a hat the whole time that covered up that afro! It felt like a bit of a waste, but at the same time it was a role that relied heavily on him conveying emotions and expressing them without words.
I like that we got something a little bit different, but the movie lacks something that stops it from being just... there. Fine Sunday afternoon viewing or something, but not anything you need to go out of your way to watch. Unless you are watching every Jim Kelly movie...
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