Dolemite (1975)

Way funnier than I expected it to be! Both on purpose and by accident.

I looked up stuff about this movie before watching and it taught me that I should never ever trust Reddit opinions on art. They had me worried that this was gonna be old and boring, but it ended up being old and hilarious!

It’s not a life-changingly great movie by any means, but it’s no bad time at all.
I would’ve loved it for the style and soundtrack alone, but there’s a lot to love here, from Rudy Ray Moore’s way of talking, to the awkward action and dialogue.
Sometimes it feels like they wrote two versions of the same line and couldn't decide on which to use so they just left both in, sometimes Dolemite knocks motherfuckers down by kicking the air next to them, it's all great.

One of the appeals of low-budget and so-called "bad" movies is that you can see and feel them being made. You see something that doesn't look all that seamless and immediately think "this was a choice that someone made because they wanted to tell a story", and that's a very human emotion that I felt a lot while watching this. I saw a lot of passion in this film, and now I wanna check out other Rudy Ray Moore movies.

The one thing that holds it back just a bit is the audio quality. Coupled with the extremely thick 1970s AAVE, sometimes I would not have been able to understand what was going on were it not for the subtitles. The music and sound effects during action scenes can also be messy at times, to the point where I’d turn the volume down.
But that’s low budget mid-70s filmmaking. If you expect it, it’s not gonna hinder the experience that much.

The actual plot of this movie is also a little thin. While Dolemite was falsely imprisioned, the owner of his rival club acquired his and used his power, wealth and corrupt political connections to sell guns and drugs, so now Dolemite has to stop him and get his club back by being badass. I think the low plot works for this movie, though. It's fine.

Overall, lovely and incredibly fun.