The movie was ok, if visually as cheap and unappealing as the rest of its stock (though perhaps with some slightly more competent direction), and as far as Blaxploitation goes, this was one of the more decent flicks of that era, and was at least more coherent than many of them. It takes forever to actually get going, the first half-hour is pure boredom, interspersed thru-out are a couple...OK action scenes that crop up sparsely between all the non-stop scenes of people standing/sitting around conspiring and blabbering on and on and on as the intelligent, determined soul brotha does all he can to lead his revolution against the man (a la founding a strikingly Project Mayhem-esque cell) (the one white member of the group who thinks he's black was a highlight)...
After watching the movie, I read Sam Greenlee's novel, which was far, far better than the cheap, boring movie adaptation (though again, the movie does briefly start to pull itself together now and then in scenes of civil unrest that make you want to join in the black rallying cry), and is more worth your time. You're better off reading the novel, and I'd say the movie is optional for fans of it. In spite of all this film's flaws, as a side note, it is included in the Library if Congress's National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant", and I, at the very least, can see why.
Review of The Spook Who Sat by the Door
