Director Robert Clouse, notable for helming one of Bruce Lee's films and tons of TV and straight to video martial arts epics, shows a lighter touch on this blaxploitation actioner. Jim Kelly plays Black Belt Jones, a smooth martial arts expert. Los Angeles is trying to build a new civic center, and the mafia is buying all the land where it will be built so they can bilk the city government. The lone holdout is a karate school owned by Pop (Scatman Crothers). The mafia and second in command Big Tuna (Vincent Barbi) lean on loan shark hood Pinky (Malik Carter) to lean on Pop in turn. Pinky starts flashing a phony IOU around, trying to get Pop's property for payment. Black Belt Jones makes like the Man With No Name, playing the mafia off of Pinky's gang, and playing with Pop's daughter Sydney (Gloria Hendry) on the side. Sydney is no delicate flower, able to kick butt with the best of them. The action packed climax takes place in a car wash run amok, and that is only one weird aspect of this film.
All the blacks in the film call each other "n****r," which had me on edge throughout. Twice, Sydney uses the word "f****t," and it was not as a term of endearment. Italians do not come off much better, eating spaghetti and talking with New Yawk accents- in Southern California. I enjoyed the film more when I watched it as a relic of the mid-1970's. Clouse and the cast do not take things too seriously, so the audience shouldn't either? Jim Kelly is an adequate hero, Hendry holds her own, and when was the last time you saw Scatman Crothers involved in a martial arts action set piece? The supporting cast is full of recognizable faces all around. One winery heist sequence involves trampoline skills! All the character names are funny enough without trying to keep track of them. Tongues are in cheek, from Pinky's wet meeting with the head of the mafia, to a car chase involving thrown panties. For blaxploitation, however, the film is definitely lacking in nudity and sexual content. Too much of the dialogue and sound effects are dubbed, and not well. The lip synch is way off. The fight scenes are good, but they eventually bore, since there are so many of them. "Black Belt Jones" is average stuff, but I have seen worse blaxploitation, and better. This falls right in the middle.
All the blacks in the film call each other "n****r," which had me on edge throughout. Twice, Sydney uses the word "f****t," and it was not as a term of endearment. Italians do not come off much better, eating spaghetti and talking with New Yawk accents- in Southern California. I enjoyed the film more when I watched it as a relic of the mid-1970's. Clouse and the cast do not take things too seriously, so the audience shouldn't either? Jim Kelly is an adequate hero, Hendry holds her own, and when was the last time you saw Scatman Crothers involved in a martial arts action set piece? The supporting cast is full of recognizable faces all around. One winery heist sequence involves trampoline skills! All the character names are funny enough without trying to keep track of them. Tongues are in cheek, from Pinky's wet meeting with the head of the mafia, to a car chase involving thrown panties. For blaxploitation, however, the film is definitely lacking in nudity and sexual content. Too much of the dialogue and sound effects are dubbed, and not well. The lip synch is way off. The fight scenes are good, but they eventually bore, since there are so many of them. "Black Belt Jones" is average stuff, but I have seen worse blaxploitation, and better. This falls right in the middle.