The Mack (1973)

As one of the many promotional gimmicks he used to pimp his latest movie, Grindhouse, director Quentin Tarantino rented out a movie house in LA and hosted a few nights of original grindhouse films.

When it came to the Blaxploitation genre, he chose to show this 1973 classic, and for good reason.

The Mack has all the makings of a true grindhouse classic – over-the-top violence, gratuitous sex and nudity, etc. But it also has what many such exploitation spectacles are sorely lacking – a decent story brought to life by good actors working under the careful eye of a strong director.

The fact that lightning didn’t hit twice for a lot of the people in The Mack (with the notable exception of comedian Richard Pryor) just makes watching the film more interesting.

The Mack tells the story of Goldie (Max Julian) an ex-con fresh from serving five years in the pen and looking for a way to make some fast money and get revenge on the men who sent him to the big house in the first place.
Naturally – at least naturally for this kind of movie – he becomes a pimp.

Goldie’s rags-to-riches story is a familiar one, particularly if you listen to some of the rap music being made today, but what raises it above the level of a simple gangsta cliché is the commitment of everyone involved to the themes of the story. The Mack isn’t just another one of the dozens of Blaxploitation flicks Hollywood cranked out to cash in on the genre’s popularity.

It’s an original, and it deserves recognition for being better than the rest.

Starring Max Julian, Richard Pryor.