Review of Three the Hard Way

THREE THE HARD WAY is a colorful blaxploitation movie, albeit not as much fun as it could have been. The story tells about a paramilitary organization of neo-fascists, who have developed an insidious, toxic drug that proves lethal only to Afro-Americans (!). The racial fanatics threaten to pollute the drinking water of all major American cities with this drug, thus bringing a biological victory of the superior white race over the Negros once and for all. The intellectual instigator of this plan explains the "noble goal" of his organization at one point in the film as follows: "You are here in a scientific institution. We are looking for human solutions to social chaos. A cleansing process is our only concern. The cleansing of the races on this continent is our goal, especially within our great nation, you see?" But the self-proclaimed white supremacists have not reckon with the resistance of the "three icy professionals (German title), Jim Brown and Fred Williamson, two superstars of American Football and Karate Champ Jim Kelly"(German VHS). They shoot and fight tirelessly through the "brown swamp" and are the happy winners at the end; balm for the collective ego of the black community. THREE THE HARD WAY was staged by Gordon Parks Jr. after the pattern of action films, tailored especially for a black audience, which his father Gordon Parks has successfully established in the early '70s with SHAFT. The opening of the movie shows Jim Brown driving through L.A. with a white Rolls Royce, accompanied by an extremely cheesy theme song, intoned by the "Impressions", who get the opportunity to present more second-class soul and funk music in the course of the film, sometimes lasting for seemingly endless minutes. Unfortunately, the film is a bit to epic in scale with it's 93 minutes running time, so the occasionally quite good action and martial arts sequences are not that effective, because too much space has been granted for the dialogs and romantic scenes. Thus, even the numerous pyrotechnical effects and shootings (including the three leading actors eliminating almost single-handedly an entire hundred of heavily armed paramilitaries) can not prevent the emergence of slight boredom. At least, the film is a bit more fun than the majority of the genre, especially because of some pretty slanted ingredients like the neo-fascists who are dressed up with red uniform caps and brown shirts, and the symbol of their organization is clearly reminiscent of the Nazi-SS runes. Highlight of the film, however, is the appearance of the three "lady torturers" by the name of Comtess, Princess and Empress. All clad in leather and each wrapped in a red, white and blue jacket respectively, they drive by on motorcycles, which are painted in the same color as their outfit! And this look is also taken up by the color of their bras! They seem to come from the visions of a drug-damaged masochist. What kind of torture the three girls are using remains, however, to the imagination of the viewer. Anyhow, the condition of those who have been tortured gives way to the most adventurous perspectives. All in all, the film can not hide the fact that it is a veritable B-picture, but due to the aforementioned unusual elements it offers at least a minimum of entertainment. Condensed to 80 minutes, the film could have been really good. The producer of the film, Harry Bernsen, is the father of actor Corbin Bernsen, who gives his debut here.