Thank you, DOLEMITE, for introducing me to an entirely new level of movies that are so bad, they're awesome. From the mind of comedian Rudy Ray Moore, DOLEMITE is a bit of blaxploitation gold. Throughout the entire film, I can't tell if Moore meant for this movie to be taken seriously or not. At times, it really looks as if it's trying for actual drama but it's all done so unbelievably poorly that I just can't figure it out. DOLEMITE is a movie produced by a team of people who had no real idea how to make a movie. Everything about this movie is amateur, from the script to the execution. Still, you can't help but be entertained for all the wrong reasons
or right reasons? Like I said, I can't figure out if it's glaring flaws were intentional or not. Dolemite (Moore) is a pimp and owner of the Total Experience club, and opens the movie in jail. He's been framed by some crooked detectives and the FBI, who'd planted drugs and stolen furs in the trunk of his car. The entire plot was hatched by Dolemite's rival, the diabolical Willie Green, who continues to corrupt the streets: selling dope to kids, providing gangs with guns, and even gunning down Dolemite's nephew. Dolemite's confidant and business partner, Queen Bee, has convinced the warden to give Dolemite his freedom on the condition that he investigates Willie Green and brings him down. This is a job for the bad, bad Dolemite.
I don't even know where to begin. There is so much to love about the movie. The horrible dialogue, the constant boom microphones dipping into frame, the shoddy editing it all adds up to hilarity. The writing is atrocious and the movie constantly grinds to a halt as characters spout exposition, but it's OK because the performances are so bad that it feels like a joke. It's like watching an elementary school play as characters step on each other's lines or stumble over their dialogue. I'm guessing director D'Urville Martin wasn't interested in multiple takes when filming; it's the only explanation I can fathom for the amount of mistakes in the movie. To give you a frame of reference, the DVD case for the movie went so far as to list martial arts champion Howard Jackson (that's his credit Martial Arts Champion) but couldn't be bothered to give mention of the cinematographer. I hope that puts their priorities into perspective for you here. Scenes are often left in wide master shots (with occasional close-ups) and the framing is often weird. I also noticed an odd tendency to hold unnaturally long at the end of scenes to watch characters wander out of frame or climb into their cars and ride off. It's like a real bad student film. Now, this movie is an action film so you've got to take a moment to show some love for the fight choreography here. Again, the fights are generally left to a wide master shot so you can see just how uncoordinated these performances are. Punches never come close to connecting and people can't even fall to the floor convincingly. There are even a few instances of Dolemite being shot (obviously at point-blank range) and, thanks to poor editing, he's perfectly fine (with the exception of the final fight).
I'm not sure if anyone in this movie has ever acted in a movie before, but it sure doesn't look like it. Rudy Ray Moore is the star here, bringing his Dolemite routine to the big screen. He's a smooth-talking pimp, often speaking in rhyme and even giving us a taste of his comedy routine in a random moment halfway through the movie. Moore was still finding his groove here and isn't nearly as insane as he'd become in his later movies. You can tell part of him is taking this role seriously and might even want to be seen as an action star. The film's director, D'Urville Martin, doubles as the villain Willie Green and, surprisingly, is the best performance in the movie. He's hilarious and, at points, even a little menacing. The rest of the performances range from the hilariously bad to the just plain terrible. Lady Reed is Queen Bee and she sounds as if she's reading the entire movie off cue cards. When she breaks the news to Dolemite that Willie Green murdered his nephew, she does so with all the emotion of your elderly grandmother reading a newspaper headline ("He wasn't bothering nobody ").
And then there are the characters that appear for no real apparent reason. What was the point of Reverend Gibbs? His character serves absolutely no purpose in the film other than to point Dolemite to some dock site where he finds drugs packed into fish, but no connection to any of the villains. Just drugs in fish. Gibbs is given 3 or 4 scenes and his entire purpose is to point Dolemite to a meaningless clue. But if I'm going to talk about pointless characters, I've got to bring up the best: the hamburger pimp. A drug addict with a taste for burgers, this dude is freaking hilarious. If the filmmakers were handing out screen-time to random characters, the hamburger pimp should've gotten more. With his hoppin' music and his crazy shuffle, I could watch an entire movie where he stars as Dolemite's sidekick (even if you can't understand a word he mumbles). There is too much to say about DOLEMITE than can fit in a single comment here so all I can do is recommend that you give this movie a shot. It's a classic movie that opened the door for Rudy Ray Moore's increasingly bizarre movie career.
And if you think this movie's strange, you need to watch it's sequel THE HUMAN TORNADO!
I don't even know where to begin. There is so much to love about the movie. The horrible dialogue, the constant boom microphones dipping into frame, the shoddy editing it all adds up to hilarity. The writing is atrocious and the movie constantly grinds to a halt as characters spout exposition, but it's OK because the performances are so bad that it feels like a joke. It's like watching an elementary school play as characters step on each other's lines or stumble over their dialogue. I'm guessing director D'Urville Martin wasn't interested in multiple takes when filming; it's the only explanation I can fathom for the amount of mistakes in the movie. To give you a frame of reference, the DVD case for the movie went so far as to list martial arts champion Howard Jackson (that's his credit Martial Arts Champion) but couldn't be bothered to give mention of the cinematographer. I hope that puts their priorities into perspective for you here. Scenes are often left in wide master shots (with occasional close-ups) and the framing is often weird. I also noticed an odd tendency to hold unnaturally long at the end of scenes to watch characters wander out of frame or climb into their cars and ride off. It's like a real bad student film. Now, this movie is an action film so you've got to take a moment to show some love for the fight choreography here. Again, the fights are generally left to a wide master shot so you can see just how uncoordinated these performances are. Punches never come close to connecting and people can't even fall to the floor convincingly. There are even a few instances of Dolemite being shot (obviously at point-blank range) and, thanks to poor editing, he's perfectly fine (with the exception of the final fight).
I'm not sure if anyone in this movie has ever acted in a movie before, but it sure doesn't look like it. Rudy Ray Moore is the star here, bringing his Dolemite routine to the big screen. He's a smooth-talking pimp, often speaking in rhyme and even giving us a taste of his comedy routine in a random moment halfway through the movie. Moore was still finding his groove here and isn't nearly as insane as he'd become in his later movies. You can tell part of him is taking this role seriously and might even want to be seen as an action star. The film's director, D'Urville Martin, doubles as the villain Willie Green and, surprisingly, is the best performance in the movie. He's hilarious and, at points, even a little menacing. The rest of the performances range from the hilariously bad to the just plain terrible. Lady Reed is Queen Bee and she sounds as if she's reading the entire movie off cue cards. When she breaks the news to Dolemite that Willie Green murdered his nephew, she does so with all the emotion of your elderly grandmother reading a newspaper headline ("He wasn't bothering nobody ").
And then there are the characters that appear for no real apparent reason. What was the point of Reverend Gibbs? His character serves absolutely no purpose in the film other than to point Dolemite to some dock site where he finds drugs packed into fish, but no connection to any of the villains. Just drugs in fish. Gibbs is given 3 or 4 scenes and his entire purpose is to point Dolemite to a meaningless clue. But if I'm going to talk about pointless characters, I've got to bring up the best: the hamburger pimp. A drug addict with a taste for burgers, this dude is freaking hilarious. If the filmmakers were handing out screen-time to random characters, the hamburger pimp should've gotten more. With his hoppin' music and his crazy shuffle, I could watch an entire movie where he stars as Dolemite's sidekick (even if you can't understand a word he mumbles). There is too much to say about DOLEMITE than can fit in a single comment here so all I can do is recommend that you give this movie a shot. It's a classic movie that opened the door for Rudy Ray Moore's increasingly bizarre movie career.
And if you think this movie's strange, you need to watch it's sequel THE HUMAN TORNADO!