{"id":5513,"date":"2015-05-07T23:10:56","date_gmt":"2015-05-07T22:10:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/?p=5513"},"modified":"2015-05-07T23:10:56","modified_gmt":"2015-05-07T22:10:56","slug":"coffy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/2015\/05\/07\/coffy\/","title":{"rendered":"Coffy"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Coffy\"<\/a>
Coffy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n

\nFormat:<\/B> Blu-ray

\nRelease date:<\/B> 20 April 2015

\nDistributor:<\/B> Arrow Video

\nDirector:<\/B> Jack Hill

\nWriter:<\/B> Jack Hill

\nCast:<\/B> Pam Grier, Booker Bradshaw, Robert DoQui

\nUSA 1973

\n91 mins\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

**** out of *****<\/b><\/p>\n

\u2018I killed them all,\u2019 says the beautiful, coffee-with-cream-coloured beauty sitting on a comfy couch, cradling a mega-pump-action shotgun. \u2018I don\u2019t know how I did it. It seems like I\u2019m in a dream and I\u2019m still<\/i> in this dream.\u2019<\/p>\n

Coffy (Pam Grier) is a lean, mean, killing machine with a soul that\u2019s all woman. By day, she\u2019s a caring, highly skilled inner-city nurse, but by night, she transforms into a show-no-mercy vigilante who takes on the underworld, pusher by pusher, pimp by pimp and gangster by gangster. Vengeance drives her, and with every explosive killing she thinks of her teenage sister, lying in a vegetative state in a rest home, the child\u2019s mind and body decimated by drugs, forced sex and all manner of exploitation at the grubby paws of vile men from the lowest orders of their gender.<\/p>\n

When her handsome, corrupt boyfriend, an African-American politician, seduces her with his words of hard truth tempered with racial caring (\u2018Our people want dope to make themselves feel better, but we\u2019re gonna take that money and put it back in the hands of our people.\u2019) and tenderness laced with a let-Daddy-put-it-all-right-again (\u2018All ya have to know, baby, is that I am your Man and I\u2019m gonna take care of you.\u2019), her gelato-smooth dream becomes not unlike that of fairy tale princesses and Prince Charmings. But when the silly dream of Barbie Doll acquiescence is shattered by the real truth, the dream reverts to the nightmare it\u2019s always been. It\u2019s the suffering necessary to put things right in the world.<\/p>\n

Such is the blood-soaked reverie that is Jack Hill\u2019s ground-breaking 1973 action picture Coffy<\/i>, which is so thrilling, politically charged and exquisitely crafted one hesitates to slap the Blaxploitation monicker upon it to simply categorize the picture with a convenient label. There\u2019s nothing \u2018convenient\u2019 about Hill\u2019s picture. His smart, nasty screenplay betrays all expectations whilst kneading in the tropes of the genre when needed, but doing so in a manner that twists the necessary machinations like a pretzel-maker gone mad.<\/p>\n

The legendary Pam Grier was already a fixture in the world of Blaxploitation when she played the title role, but this is the film that put her on the map to drive-in movie superstardom and into the hearts and minds of eager, slavering 13-year-old boys (like me, when I first saw it) of all ages (as I have been and am now over 40 years later and with well over 20 viewings of this film behind me).<\/p>\n

And never mind just the lads, Grier was a hero to women all over the world. Not only was she a classic screen beauty, but her lithe form was inextricably linked to her prowess as an actress. Nobody moved on screen like Grier; she embodied her character here (and subsequent roles) with the kind of skill that most actresses can only dream about. In Coffy<\/i> she represented a heroic figure to women of all ages and races because she brought grace, intelligence and humanity to her ass-kicking. Grier embodied the ultimate feminist femme fatales<\/i> she played with Dirty Harry<\/i> cool and Veronica Lake sex appeal, all with the soul of Cicely Tyson. There\u2019s never been anyone like her, and her performance in Coffy<\/i> is perfectly matched to the great Jack Hill\u2019s inspired writing and stunning directorial aplomb.<\/p>\n

Watching the film again on the Arrow Blu-Ray, so soon after suffering through the loathsomely directed contemporary smash hit Furious 7<\/i>, I was again reminded how genuinely talented filmmakers like Jack Hill were. God knows, Quentin Tarantino recognizes this, but we\u2019re stuck in a horrible rut of critics, studios and ADHD-afflicted audiences responding positively to herky-jerky movies that have no sense of spatial geography because they employ a jumble of edits driven, not by story or even character-related emotion, but by sound \u2013 screeches, thuds and overwrought scores. Coffy<\/i> has one terrific action set-piece after another that puts most current pictures to shame. (It\u2019s also got the cool musical styling of soul-funk-jazz composer Roy Ayers working with<\/i> the film\u2019s visuals instead of noisily, annoyingly driving them.)<\/p>\n

There\u2019s an astonishing chase scene involving Pam Grier on foot as corrupt cops in their black and white cruisers pursue her on, across and through a crazy-ass Los Angeles freeway and eventually into a wide-open rail-line storage field, which is so edge-of-the-seat thrilling because Hill uses superbly composed wide master shots, spare mediums and close-ups only when necessary. We see real choreography and real danger. There isn\u2019t a single frame of Furious 7<\/i> and most other modern pictures of its ilk that can match the sheer virtuosity of Jack Hill\u2019s meagerly budgeted Coffy<\/i>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not a franchise, it\u2019s a film.<\/p>\n

Greg Klymkiw<\/B><\/I><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jack Hill\u2019s great inner-city revenge tale, starring the legendary Pam Grier in her most famous role, is far more than Blaxploitation.
\nReview by Greg Klymkiw<\/B><\/I><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11,3],"tags":[979,1149,1128,856,673,433],"class_list":["post-5513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-check-it-out","category-dvds-and-blu-rays","tag-70s-film","tag-american-film","tag-blaxploitation","tag-exploitation","tag-jack-hill","tag-pam-grier"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","wps_subtitle":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/surUP-coffy","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6203,"url":"http:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/2016\/03\/01\/sheba-baby\/","url_meta":{"origin":5513,"position":0},"title":"Sheba Baby","author":"Pam Jahn","date":"March 1, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Pam Grier\u2019s third outing as a tough 70s Blaxploitation action lady is fun although not as exhilarating as Coffy and Foxy Brown. Review by Ed Gibbs","rel":"","context":"In "Check it out"","block_context":{"text":"Check it out","link":"http:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/category\/check-it-out\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Sheba Baby","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Sheba-Baby-594x417.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Sheba-Baby-594x417.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Sheba-Baby-594x417.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":3111,"url":"http:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/2013\/06\/24\/foxy-brown\/","url_meta":{"origin":5513,"position":1},"title":"Foxy Brown","author":"Pam Jahn","date":"June 24, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Despite the obvious star power of its lead Pam Grier, Jack Hill's blaxploitation classic deserves more respect than its reputation as a female Shaft. Review by Robert Barry","rel":"","context":"In "Check it out"","block_context":{"text":"Check it out","link":"http:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/category\/check-it-out\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Foxy Brown","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/Foxy-Brown-594x322.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/Foxy-Brown-594x322.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/Foxy-Brown-594x322.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1293,"url":"http:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/2010\/08\/17\/film-writing-competition-foxy-brown\/","url_meta":{"origin":5513,"position":2},"title":"Film writing competition: Foxy Brown","author":"VirginieSelavy","date":"August 17, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"We are pleased to announce that the winner of our July film writing competition, run in connection with the Electric Sheep monthly film club at the Prince Charles Cinema is Adam Lowes.","rel":"","context":"In "Cinema releases"","block_context":{"text":"Cinema releases","link":"http:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/category\/cinema-releases\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/FoxyBrown1.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5290,"url":"http:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/2015\/01\/26\/ganja-and-hess\/","url_meta":{"origin":5513,"position":3},"title":"Ganja & Hess","author":"Pam Jahn","date":"January 26, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"This utterly unique 70s experimental black vampire film finally comes to DVD and Blu-ray in its original cut. Review by Alison Frank","rel":"","context":"In "Check it out"","block_context":{"text":"Check it out","link":"http:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/category\/check-it-out\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Ganja and Hess","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/Ganja-and-Hess-594x333.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/Ganja-and-Hess-594x333.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/Ganja-and-Hess-594x333.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2354,"url":"http:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/2012\/06\/26\/cormans-world-exploits-of-a-hollywood-rebel\/","url_meta":{"origin":5513,"position":4},"title":"Corman’s World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel","author":"VirginieSelavy","date":"June 26, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Some years ago, I was invited to write a piece on a cinematic cult hero. I chose Roger Corman without hesitation. Review by James B. Evans","rel":"","context":"In "Check it out"","block_context":{"text":"Check it out","link":"http:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/category\/check-it-out\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/review_Corman_s_World-594x444.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/review_Corman_s_World-594x444.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/review_Corman_s_World-594x444.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":3177,"url":"http:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/2013\/07\/08\/spider-baby\/","url_meta":{"origin":5513,"position":5},"title":"Spider Baby","author":"Pam Jahn","date":"July 8, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Jack Hill\u2019s uncategorisable cult nasty is part Old Dark House\/Addams Family black comedy, part Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Eraserhead. Review by David Cairns","rel":"","context":"In "Check it out"","block_context":{"text":"Check it out","link":"http:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/category\/check-it-out\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Spider Baby","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/Spider-Baby-594x442.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/Spider-Baby-594x442.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/Spider-Baby-594x442.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5513"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5513\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5515,"href":"http:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5513\/revisions\/5515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}