Coffy (1973)

Pretty good...and surprisingly so.A nurse, Coffy, is on a personal mission to avenge the death of her sister at the hands of drug dealers. Good story, solid direction and decent performances. All this is quite surprising as the movie is regarded as "blaxploitation", and is one of the movies that started the genre. The term implies that it is a cheap, exploitative of black people, B-movie, but it is hardly that. Its production values are good and rather than being exploitative, it is empowering. Great, powerful performance by Pam Grier in the lead role. Good supporting performances.A seminal movie in the history of black cinema.

Pam Grier plays a nurse named Coffy who goes undercover to take out the drug dealers who got her sister hooked. Sexy, violent, gritty blaxploitation classic. Pam Grier in all her glory is reason alone to check this one out. Sid Haig is one of the bad guys and is amusing in a scummy sort of way. The cheesetastic songs ("Coffy, baby, sweet as a chocolate bar") are great. Love the cat fights! Lots of violence, coarse language, and nudity. Most of this is good fun but the death of one character in particular, a pimp named King George, is pretty rough to watch. Still, it's a good one. This would make my short list of must-see blaxploitation films, for sure.

Coffy came as a real disappointment to me, as happening across it, in the DVD shop. It's a more colorful version of Foxy Brown, both films aren't much different from each other, though Foxy more sting and purpose in it's tail. Again our fine looking Grier, representing female independence, and it's never been stronger, is avenging someone close who O.D'd. And again like FB, we see a stable of beauties, including Rolling Thunder's Linda 'tomboy' Haynes, A 70'S actress seen in far and sadly very few films. Coffy, a nurse, is out to infiltrate the drug cartels that take her on that same ride going undercover as a pro. Coffy's one good asset, is King George, his title song and lyrics, 31 minutes into the film as he makes his grand entrance, which too is hilarious, is hilarious. Coffy does have it's moments, one or two surprises, plus a good performance from an old 'Mash' identity, but I was sold short with this one. Could of been better.

Quentin Tarantino's fixation with Pam Grier, the star of Coffy, resulted in him casting her as the lead in his 1997 movie Jackie Brown; QT's worship of the actress really comes as no surprise—she's a B-movie nerd's wet dream come true, a foxy, feisty, take-no-crap bad-ass mama with a body to die for. Grier's unforgettable performance, along with no-nonsense direction from Jack Hill and an excellent supporting cast (including Hill regular Sid Haig) ensure that Coffy is not only one of the best blaxploitation films ever, but also one of the best exploitation films of any type, period.The film combines all the trappings one expects from a pimped-out early 70s revenge thriller aimed primarily at a black audience—big afros (so handy for hiding weapons in), cool music, loud suits, wide ties, flares, pimps, hos, and drug dealers—along with the regular gratuitous violence and nudity one would hope to find in a standard low-budget grindhouse style flick of the era. In Coffy, every woman loses her top and all the bad guys meet suitably nasty fates (gruesome deaths including being dragged behind a car until a bloody pulp and blasted in the balls by a shotgun!); all this to the sound of a funky waka-waka guitar riff.Something for everyone, then.