The film is called Black… nothing more, just Black.
We've covered it previously on this site, starting with its South By Southwest Film Festival stateside debut back in 2009!
Time flies… 3 years later, it's finally available for North American audiences, released on DVD & VOD last month, as I just found out.
Until now, if you wanted to see it, you'd have to have purchased a copy from Europe, where it's been available on home video since February of 2011.
So, if you haven't already seen it, you can now check it out, and you don't even have to wait for a hard disc. The movie is streaming on Netflix right now, meaning you're just a few clicks away.
To rehash… in short, Black is described as “a nouveau-blaxploitation adventure awash in black magic, African mysticism, mutant arms dealers, gargantuan machete-wielding mercenary armies and a truckload of diamonds.”
When his Parisian armored car holdup doesn't go as planned, the film's protagonist (his name is Black, played by underground French rapper MC Jean Gab’1), is forced into hiding. He resurfaces when he receives news from his cousin in Senegal about a stash of uncut diamonds in a poorly guarded bank in Dakar, sending him to that country, on a "working vacation" that involves lots of mayhem.
MC Jean Gab’1 played the villain in District B-13, but here, as the titular Black, he takes center stage as our resident hero.
I've yet to see the film first, so I have no comment. But now that it's streaming on Netflix, I'll check it out maybe tomorrow. I'm curious, but also nervous about what I might find, as fan boys raved about it 2 years ago, which isn't always a good thing in my book.
And true to many of the original blaxploitation movies of the 70s, Black was written by white men (Gabor Rassov & Lucio Mad), and was directed by a white man (Pierre Laffargue).
If you're brave enough to check it out tonight, come back here and share your thoughts.
Trailer below: