Made in 45 days on a budget of $3 million, Im Gonna Git You Sucka recouped its outlay many times over. Written, starring and directed by Keenan Ivory Wayans, who co-wrote 1987s Hollywood Shuffle with Robert Townsend, this hilarious spoof of the Sexploitation films of the early 70s in which a variety of dubious black superheroes like Shaft and Black Gunn got to kick whiteys ass is reminiscent of Shuffle in several ways, not least its terrier-like refusal to allow anyone, no matter how righteous theyre meant to be, escape its wicked parody.
The central premise has been updated to take account of the hip-hop generation of city kids, in their regulation uniform of tracksuits and gold jewellery. Petty hustler Junebug Spade (sic) dies of an overdose, not of drugs, but of gold chains. Hes OGd, says the cop who uncovers the body wrapped from head to toe in the gold chains that are ubiquitous on the streets of Any Ghetto, USA. The dead mans brother, Jack Spade (Wayans), a big-chested incompetent whos been having a less than heroic career in the Marines, returns to the mean streets to avenge his brothers gold-platerd death. He discovers that an entire generation of ghetto youths are similarly afflicted by, and addicted to wearing, the gaudy, electroplated gold chains that the evil white gangster Mr Big is responsible for pushing.
Wayans hard-hitting parody (he has written for Eddie Murphy) doesnt let up. He excoriates the hypocritical ex-radicals, still drawing a cheque from the Man, some of the more suspect manifestations of modern street culture, and even those old, bold superheroes themselves. And that is exactly why Sucka is so memorable. One doubts whether this relentless satire could have held together without those actors who perpetrated the superhero myths helping to unfrock those myths in the way they do.
Jim Brown (alias Slaughter and Black Gunn) turns up here as the tender-footed Slammer, Isaac Hayes (alias Truck Turner) is Hammer, and Antonio Fargas, the creepy snitch Huggy Bear from Starsky and Hutch, is brilliant as the one-time Pimp Of The Year, Flyguy, hopelessly out of date in his bell-bottomed hipsters and platform shoes.
Despite patchy acting and Wayans far from polished directorial skills (its his first outing as director), Suckas script is enough to make the film a delight. It is razor-sharp, uncompromising and long overdue.