On the Edge

Just as ORIGINAL GANGSTERS (six or so years earlier) FRED WILLIAMSON tries to kick start the whole BLAXPLOITATION genre, with this well meaning (but lackluster) effort. WILLIAMS stars as 'Dakota Smith' (great name!) all-round good guy (ex-cop) do-gooder, who agrees to help a would-be basketball star, who's in trouble with shady drug dealers (played none other by ICE T, in what must have been his 43rd movie that year) First the dealers kill the wrong family (that turns out to be BERNIE CASEY's) and then the basketball players dad (RON O'NEIL T.N.T) all get together (plus a cameo by JIM BROWN) to take on the dealers (and a gang of 'crooked cops'(tm)) WILLIAMSON, who also directs under his (not-so) legendary PO'BOY production company, hasn't really come on much as a director since the seventies. This wouldn't be a bad thing, but there's only so many times you can watch inept gunmen (led by a spaced out GARY BUSEY!) miss easy (and slow moving) targets, such as our geriatric heroes, before the whole thing becomes laughable. Plus the main reason that genuine 'blaxploitation' works so well, is as a time-capsule, in 2002, however, with roaming gang banging killers everywhere, it seems a lot harder to buy into this 70's macho image in modern times. On a plus side, B-movie fans (like myself) will be in heaven, and the movie has a goodish soundtrack (and it's nowhere near as abysmal as recent ICE T/ALBERT PYUN sh*t-feasts) But the good soundtrack, sometimes drowns out a poor audio track (plus the music stops and starts whenever it pleases, this adds to the overall cheesiness of the picture)

All in all, it's a pretty good B-movie, but it'll do little to bring back the good old days of 'too-black-too-strong' style of film-making. Maybe WILLIAMSON should stay in front of the camera (he had a pretty good role in STARSKY AND HUTCH recently)

A must-see (if only once) for fans of the genre, but HELL UP IN HARLEM, COFFY, TRUCK TURNER, SUPERFLY it isn't

6 out of 10

I recently bought this used for$3 and I from looking at the cast, I thought this would be the greatest movie ever. Well, it's not. On The Edge Has a great high powered cast and rap soundtrack that could have been a great follow up to Fred Williamson's previous reboot of the blaxsploitation genre Original Gangsters. This probably had less of a budget, but more importantly was also lacking writer/director Larry Cohen, who was a key component of making that film work. On The Edge is much more shoddy in quality, of storytelling, character development, editing and direction. Much of the dialogue can't be heard over the rap music and is well below average as a whole. The charm of the film is principly due to the charisma of the cast. Even bad 90's action is made more than watchable when you put Fred Williamson, Bernie Casey, Gary Busey, Ice T, Jim Brown and Ron O'Neal in the same movie. If there was better writing and direction, this certainly could have been a classic. However, even though I regard this as a miss, it's not a terrible watch.

All the actors did a great job of trying to act and some were better than others, and I really must give them credit for trying to act with a story that we have heard over and over again. Fred Williamson, (Dakota Smith)," Soft Target",'05, plays the role of a guy who takes the law into his own hands after a horrible killing which involves him personally. There is dope being pushed in the neighborhood to young high school athlete's and it causes all kinds of problems. Some families are killed needlessly and for no reason there is lots of blood shed through out the town. Gary Busey,(Felix) "Buckaroo",'05 plays a good supporting role, however, the story is very weak and the actors sure have a hard time trying to act in this film.

I really enjoyed this movie, I didn't care much for Ice-T, but all the old-school blaxploitation gangsters are in here. Ron O'Neal alone in my opinion gives this movie at 10. This movie came out in 2001, he passed in 2004 of pancreatic cancer, he looks great in the movie, and he gave his role great depth! I enjoyed watching this movie because you can't tell he was i'll from looking at him. He is my favorite actor,again he makes this movie worth watching if nothing else, I enjoyed Bernie Casey's role as well..