RyothChatty ridiculous rating

GurlyIamBeach Instant Favorite.

Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

robert-23730 The movie was good but it's not a movie about pimps. The movie is comparable to The Mack. Pimp movies don't have reform built into its plot. A movie can't have a message and be about pimps. It does not go together. A story about a bad guy turned good is a dime a dozen. Pimp movies aren't for that.

tomgillespie2002 As all fans of exploitation cinema will know, there were many, many blaxploitation movies released during the 1970s after Melvin van Peebles left an incredibly impression on black audiences with Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song in 1971. While many are rather enjoyable in a comical way, few works of blaxploitation were actually any good. Tony Award-nominated Broadway director Gilbert Moses' Willie Dynamite is incredibly under-seen, but is one of the genre's most impressive works, shunning the usual hyper-stylised, lightly comic beats in favour of something more serious and dramatic, while also touching on themes such as black identity, racism and police corruption.New York pimp Willie Dynamite (Roscoe Orman) has built himself a mini-empire, training his girls to work like a production line to maximise profits and keep his many customers happy. While his clothes are utterly outlandish (there are some of most ridiculous outfits ever seen in the genre here), Willie ain't no lovable scamp like Super Fly (1972), but a real piece of s**t; he regularly threatens his girls with violence, underpays them, and fails to offer any help when they get themselves arrested. When he's late to turn up to court for his most recent arrival Pashen (Joyce Walker), prostitute-turned-social worker Cora (Diana Sands) takes a particular interest, and becomes intent on rescuing Willie's girls and ending his reign of terror.For a genre normally so rich in exploitative traits, Willie Dynamite contains no nudity and little violence, earning its adult rating instead for language and drug use. The lack of sex and action scenes leaves plenty of room for drama and character building, and Willie's journey to discovering his place in society and ultimately redeeming himself is all the more engrossing for it. Anyone familiar with Sesame Street will be left shocked at the sight of Orman wearing some of the most garish costumes ever committed to celluloid and trying to keep his bitches in check, and it's a very convincing performance. But it is in fact Diana Sands, who sadly died shortly after filming, who steals the film as the force of nature with a gentle side. Ripe for re- discovery, there's much more to Willie Dynamite than I would have ever expected. Now, bring me some scratch.

JasparLamarCrabb SPOILER ALERT! A not too bad blaxploitation film with a "happy ending." A reformed prostitute (Diana Sands) attempts to bring a fairly inept pimp down while the cops are on him like glue. Roscoe Orman plays the title role, a pimp who's seen better days, and he's woefully upstaged by his ridiculous outfits. It's all fast paced, sometimes stupid, even a bit campy but also fairly entertaining. Sands brings a lot of class to the film and Thalmus Rasulala is in it too. The faux-funk music is by JJ Johnson, who also contributed to CLEOPATRA JONES & THE FUZZ BROTHERS. Produced, inexplicably, by Zanuck/Brown (a year before they hit pay dirt with JAWS).

sol1218 ******SPOLIERS****** "Willie Dynamite" is miles above the average "Blaxploitation" films made in the 1970's by it's not glorifying the title character in any way but showing him as a ruthless as well as tragic and misguided person. A person who's self-destructive lifestyle as a big time city pimp lead to disaster not only to himself but to all those around him: his women his friends his hangers-on and worst of all his sweet and church-going mother played by Royce Wallace. Back in those days, the 70's, Willie Dynamite, Roscoe Orman, could easily have been made to be a hero for the youth of the inner city ghettos to be looked up to and emulated. Instead the movie wisely chose to show him and his lifestyle for what it was, indifferent and unfeeling. Thats how Willie was to those women who worked the streets and hotels for him selling their hot bodies for the only thing that mattered to him the bottom line: Cold Cash. The film chronicles the rise and fall and in the end redemption of big city pimp Willie Dynamite after he saw his mother collapse in the courthouse, when she found out what Willie really did for a living, and later die in the hospital without Willie being able to tells her that he's sorry for what he did and get her forgiveness. Willie let his mom on to believe that he was a record agent not a pimp.Willie's top hooker Pashen, Joyce Walker, who wanted to get out of the hooker business and become a fashion model after she was shown the light by Cora, Diana Sands, a social worker who tried to save girls like her from being exploited by pimps like Willie. Pashen instead gets sweet-talked back into turning tricks by Willie's and ends up having her pretty face slashed while she was in the womens house of detention waiting to be bailed out by him. Diana Sands steals the movie with her sensitive portrayal of a social worker who knows all too well what life on the streets can do from her sad and abysmal life as a young women and tries to get the girls working for Willie to save themselves from that life like she did. We also see Diana change her opinion about Willie when he's destroyed by his fellow pimps as well as the law and becomes a broken and humbled person instead of the brash and arrogant pimp that she fought with throughout most of the movie. It's Cora's tender and emotional scene with Willie at the end of the film made you want to reach for your handkerchief. Finally Willie himself who went from a cold-hearted and unfeeling person who looked at both his hookers and the Johns who paid for their services only as dollar signs to where he became a sensitive and understanding person by the time the movie ended but it took a walk through hell for Willie to get to that point. The movie also has fine location filming in and around NYC with a great musical soundtrack.It would be unfair for "Willie Dynamite" to be described as a "Blaxploitation" movie; It doesn't exploits it's audience it educates it.