The Monkey Hu$tle

I think that Monkey Hustle is a very misunderstood film, mostly because of a misleading ad campaign that tried (and still tries, via the VHS and DVD packaging) to sell it as a plot-driven scam flick, a black version of The Sting. That's not what this is. Daddy Fox, the con man character is only a character in an ensemble. This film is much more like Car Wash--a group of disparate characters in a common place interacting. Except in this case the common place is a neighborhood instead of a place of business. Although "Monkey Hustle" is a term coined by Daddy Fox in an early scene,it doesn't only refer to con games--it also refers to the way all the characters are hustling for love, for success, or for respect. The direction is loose and the performances are almost universally winning. Yaphett Kotto is amusingly verbose as Fox and Rudy Ray Moore is hilariously--and purposefully-- over the top as numbers runner Goldie.

Now, I'm not saying that this was a great film, but it is a lot better than its rep, and certainly not the total artistic failure it is often represented as. One thing that holds the film back is that it does seem to be lacking a few necessary scenes near the end that would explain how Goldie and the Fox stopped the Freeway expansion. There are scenes that obviously lead up to that missing climax (with lots of knowing winks and secret smiles), and scenes after it is announced that the freeway project has been canceled (characters giving each other the "high sign")--but nothing about how the heroes made it happen!

However, plot is not a big part of this kind of movie. No, the most important element "Car Wash" had that "Monkey Hustle" lacked was a really great soundtrack of classic tunes to tie things together. "Monkey Hustle" is noticeably music-lite for its genre. There is one decent tune--the title track--and it gets played a lot. But lots of scenes cry out for music, and the ones that get it have to make due with endless variations of this same theme. I predict that if AIP had sprung for a funky soundtrack like the producers of Car Wash did, and the filmmakers had come up with even five or seven more minutes of action to explain the ending, "Monkey Hustle" would be seen as a minor classic of the 70's black film era. It never would have been a "Cooley High," but it could have at least been a little brother to "Car Wash" (and it is a HELL of a lot better than "Thank God It's Friday").

The main thing one needs to know about "The Monkey Hu$tle" is that it makes absolutely no sense at all.None. Zero. It doesn't even have anything remotely resembling a plot until the last fifteen minutes, and even then, the "plot" is so thin as to almost be nonexistent. So yes, this is a bad film.

However, the cast is fantastic, in that you have a lot of familiar 70s faces doing their thing with the bad material they are given. The great Yaphet Kotto leads the way, and behind him are Rudy Ray Moore, Rosalind Cash, Thomas Carter, the gorgeous Debbi Morgan, and others you will recognize from 70s blaxploitation films and TV shows.

As entertaining as the cast is, it's hard to imagine any of them knew what the heck they were actually acting in, and probably just took it scene-by-scene according to the script, never really knowing all the context. I can't imagine any of them reading the script and saying "What a plot, this looks good I'll do it." Instead, it was probably more like "What a mess, but I have a lot of scenes, I'm in." Or simply just doing it for the paycheck.

The film was shot in Chicago so there are a lot of interesting location scenes, and the film is shot halfway decently. Those things, and the cast, do make the film fun to look at. However this is a real mess due to the missing "plot" but it is worth a viewing for the pluses. You'll never watch it again, tho'.

If a white producer and a white screenwriter got together to produce a film for a black audience anytime before the bicentennial, then this would be the product. The language and expressions are so exaggerated as to be excessively comic, then again perhaps this was the intended effect (though I doubt it).

I'm reminded of the final scenes of Robert Townsend's "Hollywood Shuffle," where he plays a struggling actor who just got the lead in a low budget blaxpoitation production "Jive Time Jimmy's Revenge." Townsend is supposed to have an uncredited bit part in "The Monkey Shuffle," and one is almost certain that he was referencing the ridiculous direction given the actors in "The Monkey Shuffle." A true homage to demonstrate how shallow cross cultural understanding was at the time. An understanding made clear in this film.

With lines like "You sho-is bad!" and "Yo my main man!" one can't help but wonder how the guys at MST3K missed "The Monkey Shuffle" (probably because of the race angle; it being bad form and all to make fun of a black, or blaxpoitation, film). The story revolves around a band of two-bit hustlers, shuckin' and jivin' their way to the big time. Only they're supposedly stymied by a municipal urban renewal plan, that bulldozes their base of operations. A plan that's supposed to put a highway through the neighborhood. Too bad this wasn't played up in the film, because if you miss the few minutes of dialogue and other exposition given to the plot you'll miss it entirely. Not that you really need to know it, because it's hardly significant in the story.

There's lots of character development, but it's all one dimensional. The haircuts and costumes are laughable, and the plot doesn't come into play until the end of the film. Much of the movie is spent exploring the petty exploits of the "players," and "players" in training, and does nothing to develop either plot or story.

Well, it's been a while since I've heard expressions like "sho 'nuff" or "turkey" or even "sucka," so from a linguistics point of view it was kind of fun seeing paleolithic jive talk in action, but beyond that there's not much to offer here.

The film itself is supposed to be some kind of comedy, but I found myself hard pressed to laugh at anything other than the dated speech, costumes, and extreme mannerisms given by the characters.

If you want to see Blaxpoitation, then rent one of the better known Pam Grier, Jim Kelley, or Shaft films. Your brain'll thank you for it.

When I give a movie a 4, I mean it is really bad. This is the kitchen sink mentality of these movies with the violence, glamour and pimps all taken out. Instead we have a now very dated formula of a small time hustler hanging around a group of kids with oversized afros and egos. The best part of it, is Rudy Ray Moore(Dolemite) appearing as Goldie featuring a shirt made out of gold chains, whether hes a hustler, gangster, pimp or leader we will never know. But he steals the show withs his larger than life, style (You're my main man!!). The children do little more than try to make money and use outdated jive lines such as "Slick the slick" and there are the antics of a 12 or 13 year old boy called the kid who has a gang of synchopant kiddies who hang around trying out all sorts of nickel and dime shit. It is funny at least in its use of the cheesiest disco soundtrack possible. The roller skating scene is very funny with the disco music heavy on wah wah guitar and kids with oversized afros and flares dancing around in a bright red rink. The kids fight and steal but there is no real violence or sex involved. Overall the acting is cardboard, storyline tapering and a piece of claptrack that is an embarassment from start to finish. Its only saving graces may be the Keystone cop and Goldie, otherwise its schtick. I think too it portrays African Americans as greedy and over sexed simpletons who just want to make money and have a good time.

A new highway threatens a Chicago neighborhood, so to protest the residents throw a block party.

Roger Ebert gave the film one-and-half stars (out of four), calling it a "good-hearted muddle" but opining that "they must have left half the script back in Hollywood." Ebert did note with pleasure that the film's business justified opening the balcony at the now-demolished Roosevelt Theater, where he had not sat in four years. He is spot-on here. The film never really seems to have a direction and just sort of meanders. This can work on occasion, but does not seem to here.

In 2009, "Black Dynamite" star and co-writer Michael Jai White cited "The Monkey Hu$tle" as a major influence, telling the Los Angeles Times, "It was just brash, unlike anything I'd ever seen... I remember these bigger-than-life characters, who reminded me of my uncles, and it was the first time I saw anything familiar in my life on the big screen." This adds a little weight to the film that it does not provide itself, as "Black Dynamite" is truly impressive.