Super Fly T.N.T. (1973)

I wanted to but couldn't!

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Without a doubt, one of the worst movies, let alone sequels, that you will ever see, even by Blaxploitation film standards. This 1973 sequel to the blockbuster '72 hit movie is a huge disappointment that doesn't even remotely—in terms of both quality and appeal--replicate the preceding action-packed, street savvy tale about a highly charismatic but disillusioned black Harlem cocaine dealer, Priest.In this, the second chapter of the Super Fly saga, Priest relocates overseas to Europe where he is now retired from hustling and lives in Rome with his girlfriend, Georgia. Although now financially secure, having successfully "run down the fantastic number" in a major drug deal while in New York City, he finds that retired live in Europe isn't all that it's cracked up to be. He suffers from incessant boredom, with gambling in nightly poker games with Italian businessman as his lone source of interest. However, it is at the end of one of these card games that he meets an African dignitary looking for someone to oversee a gun smuggling operation, which a military unit in his country has recently botched.Apparently struck by Priest's charismatic appearance (if nothing else), the African official, Dr. Lamine Sonko, tries to encourage him to take the arms smuggling assignment. Initially, Priest is reluctant to do so, and Sonko prevails upon him that as a black man he has a moral duty to aide his African brothers in their time of need. With Sonko's sermon about international black unity riding his conscience, coupled with his disillusionment with retired living, Priest eventually accepts the job, much to the dismay of his significant other, Georgia, and subsequently boards a plane to Sonko's African country to embark on the arms smuggling mission.Ron O'Neal, who stars in the lead role, directed and co-wrote the story line for "Super Fly TNT," and therein would most likely explain why this movie is such a cinematic atrocity. Although O'Neal's performance in the original Super Fly movie was the stuff of legend, and he was one of the better actors of the 70s' Blaxploitation movie era, his direction of this movie, however, is overtly and highly inept. Much of the movie is confusing and vague, with scenes so pointless and tediously elongated that the only positive aspect of it is that the movie viewer can easily empathize with Priest's ongoing dilemma of being ceaselessly bored.Interesting enough, Alex Haley wrote the screenplay for "Super Fly TNT." (Haley of course would go on to become a household name as author of the classic, best-selling novel "Roots," several years after the release of this movie.) However, the screenplay he wrote for this movie, much like O'Neal's incompetent movie direction, is listless, providing few, if any, moments of intense drama and intrigue.Sheila Frazier reprises her role from the original movie as Priest's loyal, understanding girlfriend. Although a stunningly attractive woman, her acting skills are poor, so much so that her highly unprofessional performance in this movie alone instantly relegates it to B-film status.As a considerably more polished acting professional, veteran actor Roscoe Lee Browne delivers the movie's best performance as the eloquent, outspoken Dr. Lamine Sonko, the African official who hires Priest to man his country's gun smuggling operation. Yet, through no fault of Browne's of course, you can't help but wonder why in the world would a high-ranking African dignitary want to tap Priest, a man he barely knew anything about, for such a complicated, crucial paramilitary assignment.A relatively young Robert Guillaume makes his movie debut in "TNT" as Jordan, a black American writer who befriends Priest in Rome. However, his character in "TNT" is totally insignificant to the movie's plot, making him the film's most dispensable character. Yet he does provide one of the very rare moments of interest in the movie by showcasing his operatic singing ability in a scene at an Italian restaurant, an impressive talent that many, myself included, never knew Guillaune possessed. In stark contrast to Curtis Mayfield's brilliant musical score from the original movie, which became an instant R&B classic, the musical soundtrack for "TNT," performed by the Ghanaian musical group Osibisa, is rather disgusting. Unlike Mayfield's excellent musical score from the original "Super Fly" movie, the African-Caribbean-styled soundtrack for "TNT" is highly inappropriate for the streetwise Priest character and far out of context with his "cool" persona.The combination of the aforementioned elements--fatuous movie direction, vapid screenplay, and a lame musical soundtrack—makes for one of the most dreadful movie viewing experiences that you will ever have, with a story ending, much like most of the movie itself, so perplexing and vague that it will leave you hangin' and asking yourself "WTF?" as you watch the credits roll on the screen.Aptly titled "TNT," O'Neal, Haley, and Sig Shore (movie producer) collaborate in creating a complete bomb of a movie, a cinematic disaster that will truly indeed blow you away.

Priest (Ron O'Neal) is back in a sequel to the hit "Superfly". However, this time he's quite different--a kindler, gentler sort of Priest. You see, in the first film, Priest was completely amoral---and made his fortune selling dope and women. Here, the film finds him living the good life in Europe--he's retired and financially secure. However, he is also vaguely dissatisfied and despite his repeatedly saying he's only out to make money and take care of himself and his woman, he is eventually persuaded to help a man (Roscoe Lee Browne) in his attempt to start a revolution in his small African nation against the colonial powers--he wants Priest to smuggle in weapons for their struggle. Finally, Priest has a purpose to life and his performance throughout the film is very restrained and low-key. This, I'm sure, is a big disappointment to fans who want the confident and ultra-bad anti-hero--not this confused and more likable guy. I appreciated, however, that the character finally showed some conscience and a sense of purpose (to quote Steven Martin from "The Jerk"--'I found my purpose!!').I do agree with one of the reviews that complained that it took so long for this plot to develop. It was clearly a slow film and could easily have been tightened up quite a bit. Also, I agree that the soundtrack was incredibly disappointing, as the original film had one of the best blaxsploitation scores ever--second only to the one from "Shaft". As a result, the film is certainly watchable but not a whole lot more. It's a shame, as the plot wasn't a bad idea--it just was so slow and dull when it should have been anything but.By the way, one thing to look for if you do see the movie is Robert Guillaume singing near the beginning. With his beautiful voice it's easy to see why, for a while, he played the lead in the play "Phantom".

The movie opens with scenes of what turns out to be Rome. I didn't know where this was set, and I had no knowledge of the original 'Superfly', but I was curious. When I saw the Colosseum, I knew where it was.A group of rebels in an African desert gets ambushed, their weapons are taken, and the men are killed. Dr. Sonko is in the room when one of the rebel leaders is informed about what has happened. Later, Dr. Sonko goes to Rome. As it turns out, he wants Priest to help him.The first half of the movie didn't make a lot of sense, possibly because I didn't know the characters. I know they were playing poker, and that's about it. I did like Jordan Gaines, who was funny, and I wouldn't have recognized him had I not seen Robert Guillaume's name in the credits. I enjoyed hearing Priest say things like 'Can you dig it?' The music added to the movie, especially where there was what sounded like a traditional African performance mixed with 70s American soul. Scenes of African culture about halfway through the movie, including women carrying baskets on their heads, and people doing local crafts--these added to the movie as well.Roscoe Lee Browne is such an excellent actor. So I was surprised that he seemed distracted by his French accent, and not as talented as usual. But when he gave his big speech to Priest about why Priest should care about Umbia (I'm guessing at the spelling), THAT was the Roscoe Lee Browne I expected.Sheila Frasier did a good job as Georgia. Ron O'Neal's ability came through more in the second half, with some good though violent scenes where Priest had to use both intelligence and physical ability. The ending was great.I'd like to see the original 'Superfly'.

Superfly T.N.T is a highly entertaining sequel which deserves more credit than it very often gets. I loved everything about this one with the exception of the soundtrack (I liked this soundtrack but missed Curtis Mayfield) and the film's finale (which doesn't end on as high a note as the original film since this time Priest's new line of hustling has just started). Alex Haley and Ron O'Neal did excellent work on this film. Haley's script is both powerful and fun. O'Neal makes a good directorial debut. He's even better in the role of Priest this time than in the original Superfly. Superfly T.N.T. has a fine cast too. It's one of my favorite films of the era and my favorite of the three Superfly movies (although they are all worth seeing). This is a great film if you can accept the soundtrack (very appropriate but not as cool as Mayfield) and the finale (Priest's work has just begun so there's no easy ending). God Bless Ron O'Neal and Alex Haley.