Super Fly T.N.T.

After becoming a star with Super Fly, actor Ron O'Neal decided to co-write and direct the sequel. Actually, he helped think of the story with the resulting screenplay by noted author Alex Haley. Perhaps because of the criticism of the glamorizing of drug life in the previous one, O'Neal's Priest character is totally out of the business (though that was his intent from that first film) but gets roped into a more, perhaps, worthy one in dealing with guns for a country that wants independence. Also, instead of taking place in NY City, the setting is now in Rome where he and his girlfriend, Georgia (Sheila Frazier), from the first one have settled. I'll just say while I found the movie quite dramatic concerning Mustafa (instead of Youngblood) Priest's trials near the end, I can understand why many fans of the first one weren't so enthralled. It's certainly a different flavor, that's for sure! I'm also entertained by the score by Osibisa and the fact that both Robert Guillaume and Roscoe Lee Browne, who subsequently played butler Benson and his replacement Saunders, respectively, on the hit comedy series "Soap", were also in this movie though not together. Guillaume, by the way, shows his singing talents when he does "O Sole Mio" in a restaurant scene, here.

The premise of this sequel is not a bad one: a retired Priest, living in Europe, has his conscious stirred by African rebels needing help overthrowing their colonial government, and decides to help them. However, this movie takes forever to get started, and then takes forever to get to an end that feels unsatisfying and unfinished. Unlike the first movie, the musical score is terrible. It's no wonder this movie bombed in theaters and took forever to be released on video.

Ron O'Neal isn't merely fly; he isn't even simply Super Fly. He's nothing less than Super Fly TNT, tooling around Rome in an expensive-looking car, dressing like a runway model and being asked by Roscoe Lee Brown (who's sporting a French accent) to come to Africa to save them from Whitey.

O'Neal, however, has to spend the first hour or so of the movie looking fabulous for going horse riding , before he grows bored in eight seconds at a poker game, flies down to Africa, is immediately stripped and whipped by some very white guys, imprisoned, escapes, and saves the world.

Alex Haley got paid for helping write this. I hope he thinks he got paid enough for the hit to his reputation.

Everything that was right with the original "Super Fly" is wrong here. The original was the true definition of "independent film making;" very small budget, humble, and passionate. Nobody involved was famous, or a "big shot," and that gave the movie a kind of innocence that is lost on this showy sequel. The biggest mistake was taking the action out of New York City, as the ghetto backdrop played such a major role in the story, and it defined exactly who the character, Priest was. For this sequel the action is moved to more exotic settings of Italy, and later Africa. Thus the connection to the first film is lost. Everything here is bigger, more expensive, and everyone involved is more self-important due to the success they found with the first movie; thus the heart is lost as well. This is typical example of what goes wrong with sequels of great movies. The same thing happened with the "Penitentiary" franchise. The first one was an excellent piece of independent cinema, made with no money by a team of unknowns, and it was followed by an awful sequel, devoid of passion or artistic value. As far as Ron O'Neal, the man who made Priest such a fascinating character; he wasn't given the kinds of roles that he should have gotten. But he truly redeems himself after "Super Fly TNT," a few years later, with the excellent grindhouse classic "The Hitter," a film that received no attention, but is a million times better than this shallow vanity piece. I would encourage any fan of "Super Fly" and Ron O'Neal to skip this lame sequel and search out "The Hitter" instead.

This movie bored the snot out of me.

I had seen the original Superfly first. I wanted more of the same. Butt kicking, hard slapping, big bad PIMPING.

This movie has a retired Priest, (aka Superfly, the hero of the first film) living it up in Rome, approached by a wannabe rebel leader from a small West African nation, trying to get out from under the yoke of colonial oppression by THE MAN. He wants Priest to run some guns into the war-torn African nation for him.

Imagine my shock when I discovered just now that this film was co-written by ALEX HALEY, the author of the fantastic "Roots." That first came on TV when I was a kid, as one of the last of the big network television "events" before Cable TV really got wide latitude. That was along lines of The Beatles on Ed Sullivan (before my time) a Super Bowl, or the "Who Shot J.R." episode (I remember that hype too). But "Roots" was a great piece of art, and I mean EVERYBODY but EVERYBODY watched it, whatever color your skin happened to be.

This movie was a waste and a disaster, but I guess Alex Haley is where the idea of the African setting came from (idle speculation on my part).

Anyway, I guess they were trying to do something new with the character, but the concept was utterly wrong-headed from the start. The movie is also REALLY SLOW. It takes about 45 minutes before he gets to Africa! Too long! And the whole side story with Robert Guillame as a fellow American in Rome, an artist with a fantastic singing voice, was just a waste of time.

Original Superfly: 8 out of 10. This tripe: 3 out of 10.

It's still much better than THE GUY FROM HARLEM, though.