Willie Dynamite

Gilbert Moses
1974

I had a hunch after recording this one off of television that it was the same movie the Hughes brothers lifted footage from to use in their excellent documentary "American Pimp" (1999). The clips are used to show the clownish perception of the modern panderer in pop culture: a black man with a stable of tricks decked from head to toe in the absurdest threads this side of the Liberace museum. Director Gilbert Moses does an interesting thing here by giving the exploitation audiences what they want with Willie's outrageous getups, his fly ride (plush cheetah print interior), and his jive talking associates, while slyly inserting earnest social commentary. A resplendent Willie strutting away from court with his ladies may be worth a hoot, especially when it's shot in music video style, but what really sticks is the pervasiveness of heroin in the ghetto, the unbridled rage of a black muslim cop, and the feeling that pimping is the only way an ambitious young hood can make it in this white man's world. There's a strange disconnect in Roscoe Orman's performance as Willie reflected in the dual nature of the film's direction. For the most part he seems more sympathetic than not, as he's perpetually harassed by the fuzz, and spends a good portion of the film running away from a murderous cop in an extended chase sequence. The humanity Willie expresses in his rapid downfall is almost surely at odds with the cartoonish villain the studio was expecting.