It's a toss-up between this and SUPER FLY as to which is my all-time favorite blaxploitation flick. What I think makes these two special is that they delve deeper than your average urban action film from this era and touch on some societal issues. In this case the main struggle is between two brothers that represent a couple of different avenues black folks saw as paths out of poverty in the 70s. One is the way our main character Goldie(Max Julien) travels and involves the criminal life involving pimping whores and robbery. His brother prefers the militant approach in a clear reference to The Black Panthers. There's also the more usual evil white cops, evil Italian mobsters and fellow pimps that you can't always trust that show up to round things out. There's many great funky tunes, so many great lines and scenes in this. Many of those involve Richard Pryor who was clearly very messed up while acting in this but also involve some very realistic barbershop and Player's Ball bits which give this film a more documentary-like feeling to go along with it's epicness. A guy gets locked in a car's trunk with some nippy rats, a pimp gets dynamite shoved in his mouthpiece and a fatman od's on battery-acid! Overall this a great gritty classic that conveys a time and place that is long gone but will live on forever through these works.
Re-released as THE MACK AND HIS PACK:
Egyptian Mack!:
One of the all-time great double-features!:
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