Three The Hard Way

Action gets bigger by the trio.

The blaxploitation has a wide list of blockbusters which I've watched already but haven't got the time of reviewing most of them. Hell! I even own Pam Grier several reviews of hers! Today's entry, Three The Hard Way, a 1974 non stop action flicker directed by Gordon Parks Jr, written by Eric Bercovici & Jerry Ludwig, and starred by Jim Brown (as Jimmy Lait), Fred Williamson (as Jagger Daniels) and martial arts superstar Jim Kelly (as Mister Keyes) Although this film may not be everyone's cup of tea, one thing is guaranteed: you won't want to miss a single minute of the film. Three The Hard Way is pure action from start to finish, bloody shootings, ass kicking a la martial arts style, dangeroues Neo-Nazies and even more dangerous female threesomes (no pun intended)

When diabolical racist/fascist/evil white cracker Monroe Feather (Jay Robinson), with the help of fellow evil whitey, scientist Dr. Fortrero (Richard Angarola) invent a red serum that is harmless to whites and lethal to blacks and plan to dump it in the water supplies of Washington D.C., Detroit and L.A., they didn't count on one thing - the awesome power of Jimmy Lait (Brown), Jagger Daniels (Williamson) and Mister Keyes (Kelly)! Can this team of righteous soul brothers take down Feather's budding, red-beret wearing neo-Nazi organization, or will millions of African-Americans perish? They really, truly do not make them like this anymore. Films like this should be treasured. Just look at the tagline on the poster above. Can you imagine a movie coming out today that proudly, in big red letters, proclaims that they are going to save their race? 

We kick your ass in style.

Did someone say white cracker?

Three the Hard Way, besides being a clever title (three dudes, three cities that must be saved, and three dominatrixes, but more on that later), is a golden age of blaxploitation gem. It is filled to the brim with jive talk, fly threads and funky tunes. It also has plenty of action, and who better to dispense it than the three coolest men in cinema at the time - all in one place! Jim Brown as Lait is a successful record producer. He's so good at what he does, his collars are bigger than pizza slices, he drives a Rolls Royce with "LAIT" as the license plate, and tells the Impressions what to do in the studio. He even produces his own theme song, sung by the Impressions! The action kicks off when Feather's goons kidnap his old lady, Wendy (Frazier), and Lt. Di Nisco (Rocco) is more interested in Lait than in the bad guys. So Lait calls in his buddies Daniels and Keyes to dispense some justice with a blue van filled with automatic weapons. Mister Keyes even predates Mr. T as being a legal name, and they even have the same reasons ("so people will have to call me Mister" - although T might have the edge because his legal middle name is a dot).

Kelly gets to make more of his trademark, pre-Billy Blanks funny faces and noises, and there's even a scene which must have fulfilled the fantasies of the urban, inner-city audiences this played to at the time, where a bunch of cops harass him and try to arrest him and he beats them all up with style and aplomb and rides away. Fred Williamson is as cool and charming as ever as the cigar-chomping Daniels. A standout scene occurs when three women, Countess (Pamela Serpe), Princess (Marie O'Henry) and Empress (Tsu) ride in on red white and blue motorcycles, with outfits to match. It seems they are a team of dominatrixes and this is how our Three the Hard Way boys get the information they need. Perhaps this was such an appealing concept it inspired the movie Ebony, Ivory and Jade (1976).

The coolest female biker team.

Not afraid of using their weapons.

Three the Hard Way is a much better version of the team-up concept than the much later Williamson/Brown outing On the Edge (2002), and provides a lot of the obvious inspiration behind the parodies I'm Gonna Git You Sucka (1988) and Black Dynamite (2008). Additionally, besides the impressive on-screen talent (we didn't even mention an appearance by TNT Jackson herself, Jeannie Bell), there are some big names behind the camera as well - director Gordon Parks Jr, cinematographer Lucien Ballard, and a stunt department that includes Hal Needham, Bob Minor and Buddy Joe Hooker, among others...you can really learn a lot if you read the credits! All of this came together in the end to produce an above-average blaxploitation film.

While it does start to drag a bit right before the climax, travel back in time to when cars were gigantic and boatlike, and when Williamson, Brown and Kelly were the undisputed kings of soulful action. 

Racist pigs.

The Impressions!

The film has its flaws though, and they're mostly edition issues. The following list explains the most notable goofs in Three The Hard Way:

-In the Chicago sequence, Jimmy and Jagger are chasing one of the white supremacists through town and they pass the same man twice.

-When Mister Keyes fights the corrupt police officers, his shoes go from brown boots to brown basketball shoes and back between shots.

-The blue van alternates from shot to shot between two very different models.

-When Jimmy is talking to Wendy from the phone booth he is clearly inside the booth while the gravel truck is charging the booth (0:54:04).Yet,seconds after the gravel truck hits the booth Jimmy isn't inside the booth and he is hanging from the back of the truck instead(0:54:09).

-In the lengthy shootout at the end of the movie, there is snow everywhere on the mountainous terrain, then no snow at all. Also, the action shifts back and forth from day to night and back again. 

 

Martial arts never looked cooler.

Watcha lookin' at?

 

Overall, Three The Hard Way is an action roller coaster from start to finish, and that makes a likable film for all audiences (who doesn't like guns, fights and boobs?) If you're a fan of the blaxploitation genre you've probably watched the movie already, but if you're not a fan of blaxploitation this movie can be an excellent starter.

Here's the movie trailer: