Black Dynamite

Enjoyable as it is, in its affectionate way, there’s a feeling of  superfluousness about this latest spoof of the ’70s-era Blaxploitation flick, directed by Scott Sanders from a story idea by its muscular star, Michael Jai White. White, with regulation Afro and half-moon ’tache, makes for a solid, relatively camp-free, avenger. He plays a flashback-prone, ex-CIA baadasssss, who, out to avenge his murdered brother, clean up the streets and free orphanages from crack, finds that taking on the dastardly, penis-shrinking malevolence of The Man takes him – believe it, brother! – to the very centre of the white establishment. Running closer to pastiche than parody, the comedy is muted. You’re meant to laugh at the dated jive-brother ‘threads’, the period split-screen, whip-pan, stock-mismatched cinematic and televisual stylings and the uninflected embrace of period cliché. Meanwhile, the kung-fu-orientated action scenes are unexceptional and many of the OTT cameos (Arsenio Hall as gangster Tasty Freeze) may prove beyond the familarity of non-US audiences or retro-specialists. That said, the portentous dialogue, two-track-recorded soundtrack (by Adrian Younge) and eager performances are all highly diverting.