Top of the Heap (1972)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Top of the Heap (1972) – C. St. John

It isn’t clear how Blaxploitation audiences felt about this weird low-budget film from one-shot director Christopher St. John but it certainly contains enough thought-provoking content (alongside the incidental car chases and nudity) for this viewer. St. John plays George Lattimer, a Black Washington DC cop who is fed up with taking crap from perps, public, colleagues, and the captain.  His relationships with his wife and 13-year-old daughter are frayed and distant. He fantasises about joining NASA and heading to the Moon. In fact, his thoughts and fantasies are intercut into the action, even if it is just a brief blip passing through his mind in reference to what’s actually happening.  It wasn’t too hard to keep fantasy and reality straight for most of the film but I confess that I might have misjudged this by the end!  The loose plot (which sees George wrestling with whether to quit his job after the jolt of his mother’s death) is only an excuse for St. John to offer his thoughts on a variety of topics, including racism particularly but also aging and, uh, space travel (the ultimate escape?). Richard Brody of the New Yorker referenced Fellini in relation to this film and that might be apt if the Maestro was transposed in space and time to this genre. Worth a look (on Tubi).