The Mack

Gritty blaxploitation drama about a young hustler just out of jail who is determined to become the biggest pimp in the city. After some funny shenanigans and a few bitchslappings, he achieves his goal but ultimately has to pay a heavy price. It's a familiar story but the cast is decent and the soundtrack is pretty good. The best parts were actually the lengthy montages that padded the run time...they're novel little time capsules of some ludicrous 70's fashions and behaviors.

67.

Best Blaxploitation film I've seen. It's funny and has good action scenes, but it's the characters, atmosphere and genuine social conflict that make it a great film.

A very underrated movie with some very good performances with Max Julien and Richard Pryor(who was well known to cause trouble on the set). The movie starts off introducing the characters well enougg and really ties up a lot of loose ends with the violent conclusion of this movie. I will probably watch this again.

Rich and heartfelt portrayal of the world of a pimp, with all its glamour and brutality.

More of a sober character study than a campy blaxploitation piece, but all the characters here are far more charismatic than complex. Pimpin' ain't easy, granted, but it doesn't make for particularly compelling drama over the course of 2 hours, especially not when every plot development is telegraphed from a mile away.

74.000

Classic. Love that creepy planetarium scene.

This gritty flick shows how a film doesn't have to be too sophisticated to effectively approach a social problem. Julien, who looks like the Geico neanderthal, and Pryor, who in little screen time shows genuine menace, play brutal people, but the filmmakers see them from between the glamorous spoils of pimping to the gut-wrenching perversity of what defines it, from the money and power it brings to once-impoverished men to the dangerous idol-making effect it has on neighborhood children.