Outlaw Johnny Black

I am a huge fan of Michael Jai White's BLACK DYNAMITE film and I have been waiting for this film since 2018. At more than two hours it can drag while it sets up all the pieces of its elaborate plot. Jai White manages to blend his martial arts skills into this western with his own signature flare. Michael Jai White and Byron Minns wrote Outlaw Johnny Black and starred in it. Much like Black Dynamite, they bring their sense of humor to the Western genre, but while Black Dynamite was a satire of the blaxploitation, films of yesteryear, Johnny Black is more of a Western with comic relief akin to Blazing Saddles but a bit more restrained. It does have a minimal amount of tongue-in-cheek double entendres. There will be some offended by how the Native Americans are portrayed in the film, even as blatant comic relief but those who understand the satire and humor will chuckle along at the references. Fans of the previous film will notice all of the actors that White and Mimms enjoy working with as repeat faces appear throughout.

"Outlaw Johnny Black" is the latest movie from Michael Jai White and his team that brought us the amazing "Black Dynamite". (If you have not watched "Black Dynamite" yet, you are missing out on what would be the funniest movie to come out in the last 20 years had "Tropic Thunder" never been made. It is that good.) Being that it is the same crew, you will see many of the same faces returning to the party.

Johnny Black is a man driven by vengeance that leads him on a journey to finding himself. I will leave it at that to not spoil anything as the plot is actually more in depth and with more twists and turns than would be expected from what is a concept that has existed as long as stories have been told.

Where BD was a *chefs kiss* spoof of a Blaxploitation film, OJB is more a comedic western along the lines of "Blazing Saddles". More Mel Brooks than Sergio Leon, MJW does a good job of bringing the laughs while also having a good bit of character growth and life lessons thrown in.

The only issue I had with the movie is that it is fairly long, and some parts are there to expand on the plot and not hit you with the comedy. Whereas BD was nonstop zingers from start to finish, OJB is more spaced out with the comedy at the beginning and picks up a bit in the later half.

Some people make take issues with how some characters are portrayed, but just remember that it is all done deliberately to mimic a style of the past and how things were done then. I could understand what the intent was and thought everything was hilarious.

As this is a *follow up* (for a lack of better term) to BD, you may be wondering if you need to see BD beforehand. The answer is no. This is a completely standalone movie that can be enjoyed by itself. However, you will miss out of several jokes that are direct callbacks to BD (hence my review title).

While I would give BD a solid 10/10 due to the genre it is spoofing and the nonstop comedy from start to finish, I will give OJB a 7/10 for being a little longer, more sparing with the jokes and being of a genre that lends itself less to the full-on belly laughs.

Definitely recommend the watch.

I really enjoyed this 70 vibe. The running joke almost flew over my head. I plan on watching it again just to play What movie is this from? I laughed and laughed. I reached foe my remote twice, I was in a movie theater, because I laughed so hard I mixed the next joke.

I don't want to say anything that would ruin it. But it is funny, well written and well directed. I wold like to see a director's commentary pointing out what movie each scene is playing homage to.

Well it was funny it also had a message. The casting was good. Story line flowed.

I think there might be a few movies Mr. White played homage to he isn't aware of.

The intro was slow which was a minor issue but the cast holds the comedy and action well.

The story was funny, light, and engaging once it picked up when Johnny enters the location of majority of the movie.

The time spent with the characters and the way all the actors worked together was amazing you can tell they had fun while also sharing it towards people on screen.

It was a joy to see so many familiar faces, and so many of the cast from black dynamite shows up while seeing new ones.

I'm hard pressed to find someone who didn't deliver, one of my favorite scenes is when the character Jessie lee is introduced.

It had me and others in the theater dying laughing.

I would recommend to anyone who has seen the directors last work like this, and to anyone who enjoys a classic story of a villain turned hero.

Here is a movie that I struggled with. Michael Jai White is a talented actor and martial artist. One thing he is not is a talented writer or director, and it shows with this new film.

On one hand, you have some incredibly funny jokes that even had my small viewing audience busting a gut. Michael Jai White has a great sense of timing when it comes to his delivery and it works in the films favor.

On the other hand, the story is bloated, with about 2 storylines too many. It really bogged the film down and helped contribute to that extremely excessive runtime. Halfway through, I was hoping for the ending, but there was still over an hour of the film left to watch. I, at times, similarly with Black Dynamite. Although that production had much more going on than this film did, but still knew when to cut it and when to let it roll.

As far as his directing talents go, I was vastly more impressed in the first half of the film than I was for the last. It was almost like he gave up on trying to do anything artistic behind the camera and the film just became a strict point and shoot type of production.

The movie is also very racist toward native americans. The lack of respect shown to the culture is jarring, even when presented in a comedic format such as this. The only joke I could get behind was all of the native americans were played by anybody who was not actually native american and this was to parody that fact from the old spaghetti westerns. Very clever, Mr. White. But other than that, it was very racist and not very funny.

Overall, I enjoyed the film in parts. However, it was too long and feature some pretty relaxed racism towards native americans that I'm sure didn't connect in the way that Mr. White had intended. A pity because with some editing and a few tweaks to the screenplay, this could've been comedic gold. I really hope Black Dynamite 2 doesn't turn out like this one did.

2 outlaws out of 5.