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| STAR RATINGS EXPLAINED |
| Unmissable |
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| Excellent |
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| Good |
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| Poor |
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| Tragic |
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| FILM DETAILS | Certificate
15 | | Cast
Keenen Ivory Wayans
Berney Casey
Antonio Fargas. | | Directors
Keenen Ivory Wayans. | | Screenwriters
Keenen Ivory Wayans. | | Running Time
88 minutes |
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I'm Gonna Git You Sucka
The exploitation of Blaxploitation…
Plot
Mr. Big, a white gangster, is pushing a Hip-Hop era drug metaphor, gold, onto black youngsters on the streets. So much so that one of them 'OG's,' inspiring the colourfully-named Jack Spade (Wayans) to return from a tour of duty to avenge his brother. Review
Made in 45 days on a budget of $3 million, I’m Gonna Git You Sucka recouped its outlay many times over. Written, starring and directed by Keenan Ivory Wayans, who co-wrote 1987’s 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 whitey’s ass — is reminiscent of Shuffle in several ways, not least its terrier-like refusal to allow anyone, no matter how righteous they’re 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. “He’s OG’d,” 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 man’s brother, Jack Spade (Wayans), a big-chested incompetent who’s been having a less than heroic career in the Marines, returns to the mean streets to avenge his brother’s 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) doesn’t 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 (it’s his first outing as director), Sucka’s script is enough to make the film a delight. It is razor-sharp, uncompromising and long overdue.
Verdict
Unrelenting, unremitting, a brilliant broad-brush of a parody.
Reviewed by Lesli Goff
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