I'm Gonna Git You Sucka

Working through the backlog of movies on my DVR, last night I watched I'm Gonna Git You Sucka, because, well, doesn't every family look like the one in this movie on Thanksgiving?

It's late 1980s Los Angeles, and a young black man dies of OG -- "over gold", or wearing too much in the way of gold chain jewelry. In a photo of the young man, we see somebody way overloaded with jold chains to the point of parody, so even if you couldn't figure it out from the names in the cast, you can tell this is going to be a parody. Anyhow, the young man left behind a widow Cheryl (Dawnn Lewis) and a mother, Ma Bell (Ja'net DuBois). The bad news for them is not only have they lost their relative; they've got two guys visiting their house saying that they owe $5,000 because that's apparently what the dead man owed on all his gold jewelry! Thankfully Ma is one tough woman and is able to give the two debt collectors a thoroughly deserved beat down.

The deam man also had a brother Jack (Keenen Ivory Wayans) who served in the military and is just returning home from a stint, sadly too late to save his brother. But having heard what happened, he's going to make certain the same thing doesn't happen to anybody else. He finds John Slade (Bernie Casey), who was a hero in the community back in the 1970s, and tells Spade what happened, leading to the two of them to team up with some other 1970s fixtures to try to take down Mr. Big (John Vernon), who is apparently responsible for all the misery going on in the neighborhood. Mr. Big, for his part, wants to kidnap Cheryl to ransom in order to get that debt paid off, and one can guess to discourage others from trying to stand up to his reign of terror.

As you can guess, I'm Gonna Git You Sucka is a parody of 1970s blaxploitation movies. I have to admit that I haven't seen enough of them to get all the references in the movie, although I think there was enough going on in the movie that you can get a lot of enjoyment out of it without recognizing the specific things being parodied. For example, there's a running plot point that Ma has always been helping John out of a jam and for once he wants to be able to solve his problems himself. Also there was the scene introducing John, who had organized a very unique sporting event for the young men in the neighborhood. It's shockingly funny, although I thought that if any white director had tried this scene, people would have been screaming racism.

Then there are the cameos. Mr. Big makes a reference to it in his climactic scene, while an earlier scene has Eve Plumb (Jan Brady from The Brady Bunch), whom I didn't recognize but probably should have when the Brady Bunch theme was playing in the background. Not everything worked for me, and there are some lulls, but overall, the movie had a lot more hits than misses.

Those who are bigger fans of the 1970s blaxploitation genre will probably get more of the references, and would probably enjoy the movie even more as a result. Then again, those people have probably seen I'm Gonna Git You Sucka already. The movie is available on DVD for anyone who wants to watch.