theriverjordan’s review published on Letterboxd:
“Coffy” is a film that doesn’t such much walk around with a chip on its shoulder. It lugs around a whole backpack of TNT.
The Pam Grier-starring blaxploitation flick came about after its production company lost rights to “Cleopatra Jones.” The studio decided to gin up its own competing release full of the same sex and arsenic.
That become “Coffy;” a film that shocks not just with its typically gritty acts of genre depravity… but also the deep respect it held for its female lead.
With a white director and producer, “Coffy” isn’t immune to the overall stickiness of blaxploitation’s portrayal of African American power as won solely through acts of violence and street justice.
But Coffy herself might have something to say about immunity… she is, after all, a nurse.
Yes, most of her screen time is spent undercover as a prostitute, but Coffy is also granted several moments of professional competence in her medicinal pursuits.
In an even bigger genre subversion… she’s also anti-drug; hunting down smack sellers she blames for killing her kid sister.
Similar to blaxploitation icon Shaft, Coffy dominates her own picture. She suffers abuses, but the film is smart enough to realize that the real fun comes when she smacks down the baddies… not when she’s getting smacked around herself.
There were critics of the time who dubbed Grier’s performance “stilted.” Far from it, Grier gives a self-aware portrayal that oozes power. Not only that of Grier as a black icon - but as a warrior, a woman, and shotgun-toting undercover nurse prostitute out to clean the streets of scum.
Sweaty Dudes Cinema: Coffy tells a guy that she will “spit on his grave tomorrow.” Peak Dude. She makes the pretenders sweat piss and blood.
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