Movie Review: TROUBLE MAN (1972) - SPTO's Blog

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Movie Review: TROUBLE MAN (1972)

Posted on January 28, 2009 at 12:10 PM.

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Whoa a blog entry from me. I know don't freak out

I FINALLY got to see Trouble Man last night. This movie has to be one of the most slept on blaxploitation pics i've seen. I thought Robert Hooks was pretty bad arse as Mr. T. I also saw a couple TV faces too! Gordon Jump (Mr Carlson from WKRP) was a spineless criminal on the streets and William Smithers (Jeremy Wendell on DALLAS) was the police captain who was on T's case throughout the movie. The movie could've used a little more in the babe quotient but it had enough swearing and violence to tide the viewer over.

The story is nothing too special and kind of formula but Hooks as T was a strong enough prescence that it worked. The story essentially has two gang leaders named Chalky (Paul Winfield) and Pete (Ralph Waite)enlisting the services of one Mr. T as there seems to be masked men breaking up their floating crap games and stealing all their money. T goes to one of these games where the masked men appear again, well one of the masked men ends up getting killed but it's all a set up as the guy that's killed is a henchman of the rival gang lord Mr. Big. (Julius Harris) It's up to T to keep the peace and get the cops off his back as well.

I especially liked the last 15-20 minutes of the movie a lot of course Marvin Gaye's score sure helped out a lot. I can confirm that indeed, Marvin redid almost everything for the studio cut of the soundtrack which was a lot darker and was avant garde jazz. The movie soundtrack had traces of it but Marvin veered more towards a blaxploitation sound and i'm glad he went with his artistic sensibility for the album. Only one cut sounds as good in movie form as it did on the album and that's "T Stands for Trouble" which played throughout the last 6-10 minutes of time before all the bad guys were killed.

Overall, if you like blaxploitation and never heard of this movie then you should see it. Some movies get a bad rap for whatever reason and can't shake it off and unfortunately this is one of those movies. I recommend it for fans of the genre and I give it about 2 1/2 stars.

THE GOOD: Strong lead character, great soundtrack and some better then average acting for a movie of the genre.

THE BAD: Not enough heart, a bit formulaic

RENT OR BUY?: rent if you're not a fan of the genre but a definite buy if you are.