One Down, Two to Go (1982)
** (out of 4)
Chuck (Jim Kelly) and his crew enter a martial arts tournament, which they win but the mob decides not to pay them. Soon a friend is severely beaten so Cal (Fred Williamson) and J (Jim Brown) show up to show them who's the real boss.
ONE DOWN, TWO TO GO was directed by Williamson and it features four of the major stars from the 70's blaxploitation films. You've got SHAFT (Richard Roundtree), SLAUGHTER (Brown), HAMMER (Williamson) and BLACK BELT JONES (Kelly) all in one movie so what's not to like? Well, there's quite a bit not to like in this film, which is really too bad since you've got so many greats in one film.
Sadly, the screenplay itself is pretty much a mess for a number of reasons. The film starts off with a bunch of martial arts footage, which is fun to watch on its own but it probably shouldn't have been in this film. From here there are way too many boring dialogue sequences, which just don't go anywhere and especially when you'e got four masters of the genre on the screen. What you want to see them do is fight, blow stuff up and kill bad guys. We eventually get to that stuff and that's when the entertainment level goes way up.
The film suffers from a very low-budget, which prevents the action from looking the greatest but for this type of films it's okay. Of course, the best thing about the picture is getting to see the four stars in one picture. The majority of the film is based around the Williamson and Brown characters, which is fine as they add a lot to the picture. Both Kelly and Roundtree are basically extended cameos but it's still nice to see them. Fans of MANIAC will enjoy seeing Joe Spinell in a brief scene and we also get Tom Signorelli.
ONE DOWN, TWO TO GO isn't a masterpiece or even a good movie but it's mild entertainment, which should have been much better.
