Black Gunn

• Directed by Robert Hartford-Davis
• November 20, 1972

When a black militant group robs a Mafia bookie joint, a successful club owner must strike back when his brother-a member of the group-is killed.

I seriously went into Black Gunn expecting a lot more gunplay and general violence than what I got. The name and that the trailer frequently showed Jim Brown blasting away mislead me a bit. It’s not nearly as killing heavy or filled with the level of fisticuffs I would expect in an early blaxploitation movies given what I saw in the trailer. Then again this was made by a major studio rather than a completely independent production so that might be a small part of the reason.

The story has elements of social consciousness. Take note the feelings expressed by all the characters are things that are a bit still being talked about today. This came out in ‘72 and 50 years later little has apparently changed. Film can be not only a window into the past, but a demonstration of how little things have changed. Despite those items of progressivism, it never gets too deep. It is more like a superficial mention.

This connects to the black power black revolutionary movement in that Gunn’s (Jim Brown) brother Scott (Herbert Jefferson, Jr.) commits a robbery where he takes some ledgers that contain vaguely defined secrets to help his group called the Black Action Group. What exactly the secrets in those ledgers are I’m not sure.

The character of Gunn (no first name) is more reacting to the scenario than he is taking charge of it. He is the toughest of the tough but not necessarily in charge. Brown does his best with what he is given but mostly what he is there to do is bring into focus whatever topic of the day they wish to highlight and sometimes offer an explanation and at others offer an opposing view.

Director Robert Hartford-Davis and friends did their best to get to 90 minutes but there’s not too much story here. Black Gunn is mostly moments of social commentary. There are scenes where Gunn muscles his way through this or that but it’s more like the character is wandering around talking.

Bruce Glover and Martin Landau play members of the local mafia. Landau as always is good here playing a mafia member using a used car lot as his front. Bruce Glover plays his cohort Ray Kriley who is creepy crazy. Glover could be creepy without even trying. The kind of creepy that says do not leave him alone with children. He brings that same generally socially undesirable vibe to his part here.

And what’s a blaxploitation movie without a few love scenes? Gunn is the alpha male and irresistible to all women, but he’s not really attached to any of them. There is even the implication at the end that he is okay with his girlfriend of the movie Judith (Brenda Sykes) trying to hook up with another guy. I do not think-I know-you could not have the main male character essentially give permission to the movie’s love interest to move on to the next guy.

Unfortunately nothing ever builds to very much. Gunn’s involvement feels superficial since for much of the film he could just walk away from the whole situation and his life be okay. His brother makes stupid decisions that reek of weak writing rather than as an aspect of the character. Landau and Glover have the better characters that react more intelligently and matter more to the story which is weird since they are not the title character.

Still Black Gunn does manage to be entertaining enough to the point that you will not feel like you just wasted your time. It just is so much weaker than it should have been. Maybe not seek out but if you find yourself with the opportunity to watch don’t reject it.