Man the people who made this movie didn't have an hour and 30 minutes worth of story. But what they did have was really nice cars and a bitching soundtrack.
Superfly is the most basic of all criminal stories. The story of one man wanting to get out of ''The Life'' with one last Giants score.
You've seen the story play out, I've seen the story play out.
You know how it usually ends.
However what makes this one so much more fun is that everyone is against our main characters motivation.
His friends, his family, his girlfriend, you name it. Everybody pretty much tells him the same thing. That either he's not cut out for regular living and won't know what to do with himself, that his dream of regular living is unachievable because of his own attributes or just because of his god-given ''position'' in life. Even that it just can't be done because no one will let him walk away out of a life of organisations crime.
I love the tagline of the top of the poster. ''He has a plan to Stick it to the Man.''
It's one of those silly little catch phrases you'd see thrown about that has nothing to do with the movie.
His great plan is to acquire 30 Keys worth of coke, sell it on the streets over four months, grab a crap ton of money and then run the hell away. Oh yeah, he's really going to Stick it to the Man or anyone else for that matter.
The closest thing we get to a sticking it to the Man montage is when Youngblood (Our protagonist played by Ron O'Neal) tells a group of thugs trying to extort him out of money that if they want his support they'll have to grab a gun get the rest of the organisation armed and start a little revolt against Whitie.
Which is a plot point that never went anywhere in the movie. They introduced these guys who you think are going to be afraid to priest Youngblood and his drug-dealing organization but they're never seen again. They don't show up to four wheel anything they don't show up as a obstacle they don't even pop back up as a reference. They're just gone.
For that matter all of the antagonist in the film are underutilised. There's this organized crime syndicate which may also be a Police Squadron?
They seem to run a lot of the local drugs throughout the City. But they only get involved in the film towards the end and only so Youngblood can have a scene where he tricks them by giving them the wrong briefcase and then gets to tell off the Leader by frightening to have his entire family killed by a gang of professional assassins.
If you go into this movie expecting a bunch of gun fights and ridiculous over-the-top Chase scenes then you want to look somewhere else.
Most of this film is taken up with guys going from place to place talking about buying drugs, driving cars and sometimes just sitting around running their mouths about whatever it is they want to do. Admittedly that's more accurate to how someone would actually buy drugs on the street or for that matter by anything on the street because the last thing you want to do is bring notoriety on yourself. However if you like quick talking criminal punks and a bunch of really great early 70s Funk (a little Soul) then this movie is right up your alley.
The most astounding thing about this film is how well-paced it is. It moves along so well and it's baffling to me given that half of the scenes are literally just driving or standing around waiting for stuff to happen. I guess that's no different than a lot of those old western films what are you going to have two guys standing in a field for 10 minutes before one of them gets shot. It's got that same kind of energy. Minimalistic activity but with a wonderful set of atmosphere giving in by the music and the drama being expressed by the characters.
Conclusion: It's a lot better than it should be. Where it lacks in action it makes up for in style.
Oh and superflys car. Somesort of early 70s Eldorado. Very fancy, 20 times bigger than it should be and is almost a character in itself. I suspect a good chunk of the film's budget went towards that and nothing else.
If you don't think the film will interest you at least look up the soundtrack.
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