In the documentary SHADOWS OF LIBERTY, we are reminded of the investigative journalism of the late Gary Webb (DARK ALLIANCE), who found and made known the link between the Reagan administration's drug war designed to topple another democratically-elected government and the crack epidemic that has ravaged the U.$. ever since. (For his part in telling it like it was, Webb was ostracized by the corporate media and eventually committed suicide.) In THREE THE HARD WAY, we have a Right Wing racist army preparing to dump a sickle-cell type of virus into the water supply. Gordon Parks directs some of the action with a sure eye (although there are the usual gaffes one finds in low budget action films, like Jim Kelly's boots changing to tennis shoes during one fight scene), but it's his stars who make this one worth seeing. While both Jim Brown (a much better actor than one might imagine) and Fred Williamson do their thing, it's the charismatic Jim Kelly who steals the show: he plays Mister Keyes (long before Mister T), a karateka who enlists the aid of one of his students (David Chow, who was the technical adviser on the KUNG FU teleseries) to help him infiltrate a water treatment plant and stop the bad guys. Jim Kelly was always worth seeing, even in the worst of films (movies like HOT POTATO and THE TATTOO CONNECTION come to mind, though TAKE A HARD RIDE- in which he played a "half-breed" who karate-chops the legs from under a charging horse- come to mind). NOW I remember why, as a kid, always went to see the latest Jim Kelly movie: it had little to do with subject matter- it was all about the guy with the afro. (And, yet again, another obituary: Jim Kelly has moved on. Damn it.)
Review of Three the Hard Way
