The Mack is a rags-to-riches gangster film that could have greatly benefited from increased characterisation and a lot more internal drama.
Or it could have gone the other route with lots of montages, action plots, over the top one off character interaction and maybe some fun music.
As it is what we get is a simplistic story of a one-off small-time crook getting screwed over by crooked policeman. Than spending several years in the joint and then building a slightly moderate pimping business.
Sadly the stories not that interesting to talk about. Max Julius plays a guy called Goldie who is given an opportunity to work as a Pimp for this other random guy (who pops up from time to time but is never well explained).
During his Pimping time he requires a decent amount of money, gets harassed by the same police who put him away to begin with. He's also harassed by this other guy known as the ''Fat man'' who's a local drug lord wishing that Goldie would come back to work for him.
The movie doesn't really go anywhere with this storyline.
It's just Goldie saying 'No' to everybody and then maintaining his Pimping business.
At some point one of his prostitutes has an overdose on drugs and he decides to kill The Fat-man. Doing this gets him into a confrontation with this other guy who killed his mother after this Goldie decides to take revenge on not only the guy who murdered his mother but the policeman is well. All culminating in him having to leave the city because of the amount of heat he's brought onto himself.
The only part of the story where I thought something of substance might have been going on involve Goldie's brother who led this black power movement that was trying to clean up the streets and create their own local economy.
It was one of those Neo-nationalistic groups who wanted to create an identity outside of that of the white American culture, while simultaneously trying to establish black American culture in attempts to give themselves equal footing with their neighbours. They were an ambitious groups but they ultimately didn't work out in the absolute because it's impossible to create an independent economy while simultaneously trying to interact with the rest of the country. Especially when you're a secondary Citizen in said country.
Still the efforts of these organisations have led to a lot of social changes that have come into effect today.
And I just think it would have been more interesting if Goldie had more interaction with his brother in regards to this organisation. Play off the dynamic of one man making a success for himself by extorting people around him for criminal gain why while his brother is trying to lift the spirits of the very people that Goldie was screwing over.
But the film doesn't go for any of that and just gives us a by-the-numbers criminal story. There's nothing technically wrong about the story or even the movie itself. It's fairly enjoyable for what it is and it's fun to see Richard Pryor trying to play this StreetWise Punk who gives out ''jive'' talk to anybody who interacts with him. In fact that's the biggest thing about this movie. It's riddled with early 70s slang.
Overall it's a perfectly acceptable movie for its time. It's the equivalent of what most superhero movies are today. Entertaining but ultimately uninteresting.
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