Foxy Brown

Tags

1970's, Antonio Fargas, Blaxploitation, Foxy Brown, Jack Hill, Kathryn Loder, Pam Grier, Peter Brown, Sid Haig, Terry Carter

Film Title

Foxy Brown

Director

Jack Hill

Director

• Pam Grier as Foxy Brown
• Antonio Fargas as Link Brown
• Peter Brown as Steve Elias
• Kathryn Loder as Miss Katherine Wall
• Terry Carter as Michael Anderson
• Sid Haig as Hays

Another well-known cult classic of the Blaxploitation genre, Foxy Brown reunited Pam Grier with director Jack Hill, a year after the success of Coffy. This movie was supposed to be something of a sequel, but that idea was shelved. You can see the similarities of the two films, yet Foxy Brown has enough of its own style and action to stand up as its own movie with Grier at the front of it.

Foxy Brown is a streetwise woman who knows that the world around her is surrounded by deep corruption and hardship. On top of this, Foxy contends with her no good brother Link, who she constantly has to bail out of trouble. At the minute, he is involved with a bad crime syndicate who he owes money too, but thankfully Foxy steers him out of trouble despite her grievances with him. Foxy has a boyfriend who worked as a government agent tracking the crime syndicate who was presumed dead months before. He survived an attempt on his life and has now gone under reconstructive surgery, emerging as the handsome Michael Anderson. He wants him and Foxy to leave where they are and seek a life somewhere else. But other plans intervene. Somehow, Link puts two and two together and realises who the new man in his sister’s life is. Desperate to escape being butchered by the mob, he informs on Michael. This leads to him being gunned down in front of Foxy. Rather than kill her snitch of a brother, she squeezes him for information regarding the people he is involved with. He spills that the syndicate is headed by perverse couple, Steve Elias and Miss Katherine Wall. These twisted lovers specialise in a ‘modeling agency’ which they send out to judges and people in power to make sure that the criminals they employ get off on whatever charges are brought against them. Angered and broken-hearted by Michael’s murder, Foxy goes undercover in this agency and begins to destroys it from the inside. And when I say destroy, Foxy serves up revenge as something brutal and far from pleasant on the evils that she sees. Employing anyone she can to aid her, she is about to do one nasty number on the mob.

Foxy Brown is hardly the most original story and bears many elements from Coffy, but Jack Hill keeps it eminently watchable thanks to his sassy script, good camera movements and examples of utter outrageousness that he tosses in for good measure. I mean there is a vicious cat fight in the middle, death by a few inventive ways and Foxy’s final revenge that all fashion a potent vengeful cocktail. This isn’t a movie to really take seriously on many a level, so it is best to enjoy it as violent and explosive entertainment, which it has in spades. What the film lacks in narrative coherence, it makes up for in set pieces as the eponymous Foxy destroys the crime syndicate with her sex appeal and intelligence. After a slow start, once Foxy is out for justice the pace quickens and the shocks come thick and fast. Being a Blaxploitation movie of outrageous and questionable content, you may have to switch your mind to thinking differently when watching the film. Only on one occasion does the streak of nastiness that is present throughout become too much and a bit unpleasant, but that is the only time it strays over that line. Fun is to be had with this film and that is where it hits the mark right at the centre and ensures we too have a good time. Looking at the visuals, particularly the fashions on show, makes for a cool time as they still retain a certain cool vibe to them, especially when paired with the groovy score that Foxy Brown has.

Queen of the genre Grier is typically excellent as the seductive and resilient leading lady who won’t take no bull from anyone. With her curvaceous figure, avenging angel eyes and propensity for impudent one liners, Grier is a force of incredible nature. She is on ass-kicking form; displaying the character’s fierce anger and capacity to get her revenge through means of sabotage that makes her all the more watchable as a heroine. The film truly belongs to Pam Grier and her boundless and ferocious energy. Antonio Fargas is great as Foxy’s rat of a brother whose underhand activities are what leads to the event that causes Foxy to go for the jugular. Peter Brown strikes the right impression as one of the main criminals who is if anything also a caged man and a louse to boot. Kathryn Loder overacts dramatically as the cold-blooded and possessive head of the criminals, almost coming off as a stone-cold maiden who gets whats coming to her. The melodrama of her performance is actually a good thing for this sort of movie as she thinks she is in control but is in for one nasty surprise. Briefly seen is Terry Carter as Foxy’s ill-fated man, and though his part is small, it is well used as a plot device that kicks events into high gear. In a cameo, Sid Haig plays a slimy pilot for the criminal organisation who gets duped by Foxy.

So it may be a bit overly familiar to some, but Foxy Brown provides thrills, action and Pam Grier in a movie that is packed with quickness and outrageous antics that many will appreciate.