Three the Hard Way

Three the Hard Way (1974)

*** (out of 4)

A group of evil whites have come up with a special chemical that can be put into water and it will only harm the black people who drink it. One black man escapes from their facilities and manages to get word back to Jimmy Lait (Jim Brown) who calls upon Jagger (Fred Williamson) and Mister Keyes (Jim Kelly) to go after the crackers.

THREE THE HARD WAY isn't a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination but if you're a fan of the 70's blaxploitation then you're bound to have a good time with it. The film is pretty much what you'd expect from an exploitation picture of this era as it features a pretty wild and over-the-top story where every white person is a racist nut and every black person is a hero.

It appears that director Gordon Parks, Jr. was a fan of explosions because there are quite a few that happen throughout this picture. In fact, there are sometimes cars exploding when there really wasn't any reason for them to do so other than it seems the director wanted to see it. This certainly adds to the fun and we've also got several other fun action scenes including a highlight where Brown is being chased around a parking garage constantly having to get out of the way of these cars trying to smash him.

As I said, there's certainly nothing ground-breaking from a technical standpoint but fans of the genre should have some fun with this. The biggest benefit is getting to see Brown, Williamson and Kelly all in the same picture. They would appear in the same picture later in their careers but this here was when they were all in their prime.