With a tagline like 'For every drop of black blood spilled…. A white man pays!' you'd expect Robert Hartford-Davies' Jim Brown vehicle Black Gunn to deliver non-stop action, with the ex-pro football star busting 'The Man's' head at every opportunity, and making time for the ladies when the occasion calls for it or the mood hits him. And that's more or less what you get in this fast paced and entertaining violent 'blaxploitation' film, which Columbia has decided to slap onto DVD just in time for Black History Month.

The story, basic as it is, goes a little like this – a group of black militants known as B. A. G. (Black Action Group) rob an illegal gambling house run by some white mobsters. In the process, one of the thugs, Scott Gunn (Herb Jefferson Jr. who I remember as Lt. Boomer from Battlestar Galactica!), grabs some books that detail just what political figures around town have been paid off. Obviously, the mob is none too happy about this information falling into the wrong hands, and they send out a goon squad put together by a mob boss named Capelli (played by Martin 'Bela Lugosi' Landau) who sells used cars on the side.

Scott takes the cash and the books and hides them away in the safe at the swank night club, The Gunn Club, run by his brother (Jim Brown of the Slaughter films from AIP). Eventaully, Scott gets mowed down by the mob, and the surviving Gunn takes it upon himself to take on the mob and avoid the local cops who are keeping a close eye on him after he gives them some attitude.

And as I said, along the way three's plenty of violence, explosions, shoot outs and tough talk – but never so much that Gunn can't make time for the lovely ladies who he seems to have a steady supply of courtesy of his successful night club operation.

Black Gunn is a rather predictable effort but it's well directed and Brown shows no small amount of charisma on the screen, deftly kicking honkey ass as easily as he loves the foxy females (Brenda Sykes of Cleopatra Jones plays the main love interest). And it's ultimately Brown's charisma and ability to make a convincing action star/night club owner hybrid hero that makes the film work as well as it does. Landau delivers a good turn as the slimy car salesman come Mafioso type, grimacing his way through the film and never hesitating to sic his thugs on Gunn and his crew.

Director Hartford-Davis keeps the action moving at a brisk pace, and the script, supplied by Hartford-Davis and co-writers Franklin Coen and Robert Shearer provides enough classic tough guy jive talkin' to fill an aircraft carrier. These attributes lend to the film a nice seventies feel that, in addition to it's action and love scenes, makes the movie enjoyable and a lot of fun, even if ultimately we all know where it's going to end up.

Video:

The anamorphic widescreen transfer is presented in the film's original aspect ratio of 1.85.1 and despite the presence of some minor print damage and an inordinate amount of grain or dirt present in one or two of the darker scenes, the movie looks pretty good. Some of the color hues look a little bit off but overall they're well maintained and the transfer is, for the most part, clean and clear and pleasing to the eye. It's not perfect, but it's certainly as good as one would expect from an older low budget cult/action film.