Review: Slaughter’s Big Rip Off

The title ex-Green Beret (Jim Brown) is back and this time he takes on the mobster Duncan (Ed McMahon!) who tries to kill Slaughter in the opening scene, only to inadvertently kills his friend (Bye-Bye, George Gaynes!). Obviously Slaughter is pissed and sets his sights on getting bloody revenge on Duncan. Brock Peters plays a rigid but honest cop who recruits Slaughter to nab confidential mob documents for him, meaning he can’t just go in and kill Duncan right away. Slaughter recruits an unlikely source to aid him in the document retrieval mission, idiot pimp Jim Creole (Dick Anthony Williams), who happens to be an efficient thief. However, after the first failed assassination attempt, Duncan has hired a hulking assassin named Kirk (Don Stroud) to get the job done right and kill Slaughter. Gloria Hendry plays Slaughter’s fed-up, sexually frustrated woman, Art Metrano is a sleazy underworld figure, Judy Brown is one of Slaughter’s contacts, and Scatman Crothers appears briefly as a guy named Cleveland.

 

AIP and director Gordon Douglas (a long-serving director whose best film was the giant ant film “Them!” in 1954) have gathered together a pretty strong supporting cast to surround Jim Brown in this 1973 follow-up to Brown’s terrific Blaxploitation starring vehicle. Unfortunately, the results here are fairly disappointing. There are good moments and performances, but it’s far too slow and features far too much padding for what is a pretty short film. It meanders a bit too much.

 

Jim Brown isn’t the world’s most lively or expressive actor, but he sure does know how to effectively simmer and occasionally explode on screen. Slaughter gives no fucks and is not a man to be messed with once he’s on a mission. He’s good, but he is upstaged (both for positive and negative reasons) by Dick Anthony Williams, Don Stroud, Brock Peters, and rather amazingly by Ed McMahon. Yes, “The Tonight Show” sidekick Ed McMahon is here as our main villain. I had no idea the guy could act let alone that he’d be so effectively cast as a no-nonsense crook. He’s really, really good, as is the underrated Don Stroud as his chief assassin. I’ve seen the actor plenty of times over the years in mostly action or exploitation films, but this was the first time I realised just how big the guy is. He makes for a really good thug and quite a good physical opponent for the hulking manly man Brown. Brock Peters is the closest thing the film has to a real actor. The guy was Tom Robinson in “To Kill a Mockingbird” for crying out loud. Here he plays a no-nonsense cop and doesn’t for one second act down to the material. He gives it his all, and the film is lucky to have him around, albeit not all that frequently. As for Dick Anthony Williams, he’s having a high old time in a fabulous blue suit as a dickhead pimp named Jim Creole. You’ll remember him more than anyone else here, even if it takes far too long for screenwriter Charles Eric Johnson (The Fred Williamson vehicles “Hammer” and “That Man Bolt”) to properly integrate this character into the main plot. On the downswing, poor Gloria Hendry once again is relegated to playing a whiny nag. She’s a much better actress than her roles really afforded her (She was sadly one of the least memorable Bond girls in the otherwise top-notch “Live and Let Die”). Her best scene is a strangely cute bit where she finally gets what she wants from Slaughter…by pointing a gun at him. Hey, whatever works, right? Otherwise she’s given no choice but to be one-note here. I also need to point out that if you have Scatman Crothers in your cast you are super lucky to have his ebullient charm and should give him a lot more to do than his piddly cameo here affords him. A shame. Look out for two future “Police Academy” alum here in George Gaynes and Art Metrano. Gaynes bites the dust in the opening scene, whilst an almost completely unrecognisable Metrano does way better here than his “Police Academy 2 & 3” work playing a drugged-out sleazy toolbag. It’s a fun cameo.

 

Disappointing sequel has good elements, but it’s too slow and there’s too much unnecessary clutter getting in the way of the main plot. Equally disappointing is the James Brown score, a rather run-of-the-mill instrumental job that could’ve been churned out by anyone. One expected more from The Godfather of Soul, who gave us the excellent soundtrack to “Black Caesar”. Still, there are moments. Ed McMahon is a surprisingly effective villain, even if he wears the ugliest goddamn shirt in fashion history at one point.

 

Rating: C+