When drug dealers take out his kid brother, ex-CIA agent Black Dynamite (Spawn's Michael Jai White) makes like a karate-chopping dynamo to track them down. Armed with a .44 Magnum, a set of nunchucks, and a sexy 'stache, Big D starts out in the City of Angels, where his buddies Cream Corn (In Living Color's Tommy Davidson), a hustler, and Bullhorn (co-writer Byron Minns), a club owner, offer to lend a hand. The deeper Dynamite digs, the more endangered his life becomes as he uncovers a conspiracy to keep the black man down by flooding the streets with malt liquor and filling the country's orphanages with smack. Since the smooth operator has a way with the ladies, he also enlists Gloria (I Am Legend's Salli Richardson-Whitfield), a socially-conscious soul sister, to aid in his clean-up campaign. Director Scott Sanders and White, who co-wrote the script, collaborated on 1998's Thick as Thieves, and their chemistry shines through. If the supporting cast can be a little wooden, White gives Shaft's Richard Roundtree a run for the money with his cool-cat charisma. Set in 1972, Black Dynamite doesn't just act like a movie from the Superfly era, it looks and sounds like one, too, courtesy Adrian Younge's old-school funk score, Shawn Maurer's 16mm cinematography, a cartoon credit sequence, and some carefully choreographed boom mic appearances. And dig those crazy cameos: Arsenio Hall as Tasty Freeze, Brian McKnight as Sweet Meat, and NBA veteran John Salley as Kotex. --Kathleen C. Fennessy



Stills from Black Dynamite (Click for larger image)