Coffy
The movie starts in a club where a junkie tries to convince his drug dealer to come see a girl he has who will do anything to get a fix. The dealer is like nah bruh, I got plenty of ladies here, fine ladies who are not junkies why do I need some strung out chick? However when the junkie told the dealer she’s in his car he runs out the club to get her out of his ride, and that’s when he saw her. A girl far more spectacular than he had ever seen before…Miss Pam Grier.
Miss Pam Grier is spectacular indeed. Beautiful and bad ass, as she uses her lusty body to lore the drug dealer into a situation where she can blast his head off with a shotgun.
Pam Grier had already been a star before Coffy came along doing supporting roles in Roger Croman films during the Women in Prison Era. Croman has documented many times in many interviews how durring that era he would always cast a white woman and a black women to star in those prison movies, but while the white woman changed, the black woman was always Pam Grier. I can see why.
Starring in such movies as the Big Bird Cage and the Big Doll House as well as the Arena (Which was techically a women in prison women set during the gladiator days) you can say she was one of the main reasons why those movies did so well. So it was not hard for director Jack Hill who directed Grier in the Big Doll House, to convince Croman that Grier is set to become a lead in a new movie for the new genre of Blaxpolation.
Grier plays Coffy, a nurse whose little sister is all messed up on drugs and Coffy unleashes some vigilante juistice to make sure no other kid falls victim, but when her freind, a police officer gets rough up for being one of the good ones, Coffy takes to the streets like a private eye and an undercover cop to find the colpurt.
As an offset to what Croman was doing earlier in the decade, Coffy is a great story about the issues of Drugs on the street and how it should be handled, but it’s greatly inserted with a lot of nudity, and not just from Grier who is definetely the best looking lady in the bunch. I have to admit, I hold the film in high regard because of this, in all fairness I was barely thridteen years of age when I first saw it (now I’m remenciing of old times with my VCR rewinding and fast forwarding, playing certain scenes over and over again until the tape wore out)
As an adult…nothing has changed, really, but I do have an appreciation for the film past its soft-core porn qualities. For instance, its Pam Grier’s leading actress debut. To this day I still say Grier is one of the best action heroes ever to be on the big screen. She’s no doubt sexy, but she also has a charming personality. She always portrays smart charaters who’s actions are motivated by a just cause. To be blunt, as Coffy, Grier puts herself in a dark situation, trying to get the drugs off the street anyway she can. Not to sound chuvanistic but this game is very dangerous for a woman, Coffy gets beaten up, sexually harassed and that emotional turmoil can’t be good, but Grier proves that a strong black woman can come through anything as she battles injustice.
Coffy has some great fight scenes. One particular is a huge cat fight between Coffy and a few hookers. One of the best battles period and its an all-girl battle met to simulate in all the right places. Sure, most of the reason of why I like it is because ladies are getting their dresses torn off, but it’s also one of the best battles I seen in a movie,period. These girls were no joke and ready for battle, the most bad ass of course being the sensational Grier. A found memory of mine is at the end of the fight when one of the whores grabs Coffy’s hair only to have her hands sliced up from the razors she hid in her afro. My mother, a huge fan of Grier herself, once told me that she use to put razors in her Afro wig as well. Always thought that was cool.
Sid Haig is in the flick as well. It means something because Sid Haig, Pam Grier and Jack Hill worked together a lot in the beginnings of her career. It’s weird listening to Haig play a racist henchmen knowing how much he’s worked with Grier (for some reason), but constally referring to Coffy as a “nigga bitch” does enhance his mencing demetor. Plus, the weird foreign accent.
Action packed, cinema!
