Slaughter's Big Rip-Off

Stella Stevens is off on the Poseidon Adventure, so Slaughter has to find a new girlfriend in this sequel in his battle with the mob. Judith M. Brown's audition was certainly a nice start, but she's no Stella. Of course, Gloria Hendry is working hard to keep him on a leash.

It was a treat to see Ed McMahon and Don Stroud, and Scatman Crothers, along with Brock Peters. They definitely made the sequel more interesting.

Dick Anthony Williams plays a classic pimp with the jive talk and flashy threads who joins Slaughter in a rip off scheme. Unfortunately, Stroud takes him for a ride. Stroud makes a classic mistake, however, and Slaughter is ready for action.

The cool dude just does the job.

This meandering tale of mob revenge is simply not very interesting, even with Ed McMahon in a ripe role as the chief heavy. Jim Brown kicks ass effectively, Gloria Hendry proves again that she can bring life to even the poorest roles, and Brock Peters is decent as The Cop Who Plays By the Book. It's still dull and badly constructed, and even the print shown on cable is now emasculated of its original James Brown score.

As blaxploitation movies go, this fares o.k, but isn't anything remarkable. Big Jim Brown, if you don't know, is one of this famous black stars of the 70's, who's big set build, makes a viable commodity in these pics. Playing a famous, ever so cool character, in this so called sequel (the original I liked less), he finds himself in quite a pickle, as he becomes a marked man, by some dudes he ripped off, where at the start, his best friend, and a very familiar Police Academy face, buy the farm instead. Slaughter intends to find out who's responsible, and find them, before he becomes a memory. Not many surprises, the main one, being near the end, stretching reality some, but in light of it's faults, SBRO doesn't come off, as not a badly made pic, where Slaughter still has time to make love, especially to one hottie, who bares and gives herself completely to him. Another one, a blonde bombshell, who this pimp soughts out, will stay in your mind, Some nice blood shed too, as well as some good performances, notably, or surprisingly, ex t.v. show host, Mcmahon as a drug baron, and Don Stroud, as a great nasty, of a hitman. Hendry as Slaughter's girl isn't bad either. Brown is so perfect for Slaughter, it's just in the voice, but on the surface, this movie, I felt was more a let down, or limited to be more precise. Metaphorically a let down, like Stroud, letting the air out of that time. Great soundtrack.

While enjoying a cookout on a ranch with several friends, a biplane appears out of nowhere and begins spraying the area with bullets. Although the former Green Beret soldier by the name of "Slaughter" (Jim Brown) is not killed, several of his friends lie dead and dying all around him, and he immediately vows to kill those responsible. But first, he has to find out who issued the contract on him and why. But before he can initiate an investigation, he has to find a safe place for his girlfriend, "Marcia" (Gloria Hendry), and somehow get the police off his back as well. Unfortunately, this process becomes more problematic the closer he gets. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this turned out to be a fairly decent "Blaxploitation" film with good action and solid acting all around. Likewise, the addition of Judith Brown (as "Norja") and the aforementioned Gloria Hendry certainly didn't hurt the scenery in any way either. On the other hand, I have to admit that it loses points on the "realism scale" due to a couple of scenes that defied reality. Even so, I thought that this sequel was a slight improvement over the 1972 film "Slaughter" and I have rated it accordingly. Slightly above average.

The movie itself is pretty good - but only the ORIGINAL version with the awesome soundtrack by James Brown. For the dvd release, the studio was too cheap to buy the rights to original music, so they replaced it with new, generic sounding funk music! And they didn't even change the credits or the packaging to reflect that! That's a pretty big slap in the face to the father of funk himself, so that's why I say avoid this DVD at all costs.