Coffy (1973)

Excellent but underrated film

Admirable film.

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

When a nurses sister dies of an overdose, she goes on the hunt for the evildoers responsible. In a refreshing idea, the gang is black and white. Coffy gets her revenge, and it's a brutal one. Pam Grier, still lovely today, absolutely steals this movie.

I picked up Coffy as part of a 2-movie set packaged with Friday Foster. I was pleasantly surprised with how much I liked Coffy.Pam Grier is a strong female lead during a time when strong female leads were rare, especially in the blaxploitation era. She plays a nurse named Coffy who goes out on a revenge-driven killing spree of any and all scumbags involved in the drug trade in her city. Her baby sister was a victim of drug pushers, setting off her rage. The violence is pretty standard for the genre, but there seems to be an undercurrent of sleaze, with women getting their tops torn off just for the hell of it. Director Jack Hill is a veteran of the genre and this is nothing new for one of his films. A solid plot without many logic gaps, good action, with actors such as Sid Haig and Robert Doqui to support Grier in her efforts to come off as heroine amongst the sleaze. Recommended for those who enjoy 70's styled sleazy action.

This movie is two years older than me, and still it is only now that I get to see it. And for a movie this old, it actually still holds up its own. It does, of course, show that it is from 1973 in every aspect, but still well-worth a watch.Story-wise then "Coffy" is a straight forward movie that offers no surprises or twists along the way. And while you already know exactly how the movie will end from the very beginning, then it does still prove entertaining enough.The story is rather simple; a nurse sets out to seek revenge as she has found her sister doped up and a friend left brain-damaged. While guns are deadly, Coffy makes use of her most dangerous weapon of all; her seductive sexuality.As for the acting, well, I will say that people were doing good jobs with their roles and characters. Pam Grier was, of course, the star of the movie. I was more than surprised to see a young Sid Haig on the screen, and he was as devious as always."Coffy" is not an overly impressive movie in itself, but it is interesting that it still passes as a movie worth watching alongside many other Hollywood productions today.

Blaxploitation is so synonymous with the persona of Pam Grier that the subgenere may as well be dubbed as worthless trash when without her. Let's face it: blaxploitation flicks are trash, nudie cuties stirred up with drug violence and gang warfare without enough acumen to make for anything besides low, low, art. For the most part, they consist of a few ticklish one-liners, a myriad of boob flashes, and a h*ll of a lot of gun shots, cocaine snorts, and shag carpets. Today, we're fond of their terribleness. They remind us of a time when films could be sleazy and unapologetic, bulletproof to critics because they catered to audiences looking for skin, slaughter, and post-Motown blackness.But Pam Grier doesn't, and never did, disappear into the background noise of better films. As of this moment, you probably can't remember what Tamara Dobson ("Cleopatra Jones") looked like, how Ron O'Neal ("Superfly") sounded when he was high on movie coke — but I guarantee that, in ten years, Grier will still be hanging around in your psyche, personifying the ever elusive film femme that was strong and scrappy but also feminine and sensitive. As Roger Ebert reminded us in his original review of 1973's "Coffy", Grier essentially reversed the stereotypes strung together by the majority of blaxploitation thrillers. Most gave the man the duty to save the day while the love interest waited around in bed until he finally fixed things up and had time to make some water bedded love. But Grier, or perhaps, writer/director Jack Hill, in an honorably feminist mood, asked a question most left untouched: what would happen if the woman saved the day, and didn't need a man to survive in a cold, hard world of drugs, cash, and hookers?As "Coffy" opens, its titular matron is p-ssed. Kills two drug pushers with a shotgun p-ssed. Is willing to slaughter more criminals p-ssed. Smacking the blood on her lips p-ssed. Why? Her sweet little sister, apparently not as precious as she thought, has destroyed her sacred life with laced heroin, laying sick and immobile in a hospital that would rather get rid of her than help her out. Coffy wanted her young sibling to have dreams, to dance, to let her hair down in a wholesome, Doris Day kind of way. So when those hopes are diminished, she decides to get revenge on the drug mavens who gave her the goods in the first place. After violent confrontations continue on in a vicious cycle, she finally sets her sights on crime lord King George (Robert Duqui), who seems to be behind all the street crud that has sabotaged her life. And when it turns out that her congressman boyfriend (Booker Bradshaw) also has a part in the corruption, she figures she may as well throw caution to the wind and go all out. Grier can do it all: she's a terrific actress, as much of a presence as the mainstream broads that, more than once, stole her thunder, and she's a worthy exhibitionist, proud of her extremely (extremely) curvaceous body and more than happy to flaunt it. But she isn't much like a Russ Meyer girl with busty proportions and not much else — she is so commanding in her sexual prowess that, like Nicki Minaj (I'm going out on a limb here), we find ourselves as much titillated by her presence as we are unsure how to react to it. For Grier (and Coffy), sex is a weapon, and she knows how to use it.But Grier isn't so dependent on her chest that she forgets to act; she really and truly knows what the h*ll she is doing and makes "Coffy"'s lame dialogue suddenly seem like urban Shakespeare. Other actors in the room don't even try to give Hill's lazy writing any sort of life; Grier, though, pretends she's reciting something the Academy would give notice to. She makes Coffy a superbly memorable character, not just for her physical presence but also for her craftiness, her sincere, empathetic hatred for the men that destroyed her sister's life.I won't go into details regarding the productional values of "Coffy"; everything other than Grier, and the funk obsessed soundtrack, instantly leaves the memory with its routine sex, drugs, and revenge plot. It's an average film with a too-good-for-her-material actress as its front-and-center. A shame — most never knew what to do with Grier after the blaxploitation era ended: should she be a villain? A detective? A wise older woman? Thank God Quentin Tarantino swooped down to save her from further career monstrosities through 1997's "Jackie Brown": then and there was she able to prove that she was so much more than an icon of an otherwise trashy 1970s subgenre. She was also a leading lady with class, with major talent. "Coffy" is a showcase for her unique abilities that puts its brazenness aside in favor of a goddess of an actress.