Foxy Brown (1974)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Foxy Brown (1974) – J. Hill

Earlier this year, I read Quentin Tarantino’s book about his favourite movies when growing up (Cinema Speculation, 2022) and while Foxy Brown wasn’t explicitly mentioned, parts of the book read like an ode to blaxploitation.  It isn’t coincidental that he later chose to revive Pam Grier’s flagging career by casting her as the lead in Jackie Brown (1997), one of his best movies (thanks to Grier and the late Robert Forster).  Surprisingly, blaxploitation is one of my blind spots, so I decided to check out this classic – and for all its obvious datedness, it holds up.  Grier plays Foxy whose brother (Antonio Fargas) is a drug dealer but whose boyfriend (Terry Carter) is an undercover narcotics agent. After the latter is gunned down, she plots her revenge by going undercover in the “modelling agency” run by drug ring kingpins Miss Katherine (Kathryn Loder) and (chief baddie) Steve Elias (Peter Brown). When her cover is blown and she’s shot up with heroin and subjected to unwanted attention by henchmen out at the ranch, she escapes and enlists the local neighborhood action committee (also focused on wiping out the scourge of drug dealers) to help her get her revenge.  Expect sex and violence and a superbad Pam Grier.