The Return of Superfly 
                                       
Director: Sig Shore
Year: 1990
Rating: 4.5
After the original Super Fly in 1972 with Ron O'Neal there was a sequel, Super Fly T.N.T. in 1973. It was a quick follow-up again starring O'Neal but also giving him the director's chair. Both were produced by Sig Shore. I haven't seen the sequel but by most accounts it was a terrible misfire. Priest goes off to Europe and joins an African Revolution. Whose silly idea was that I wonder? Well, none other than Alex Hailey - who three years later would write Roots. The film put an end to Super Fly. But then in Hollywood, nothing really dies and seventeen years later Sig Shore gave it one more try and he decides to direct it. Probably not the best idea.  O'Neal was still alive but passed on it and so they hand the role over to Nathan Purdee, who was basically a soap actor. He isn't bad but he is no Ron O'Neal. If you look closely at the poster, you will see a familiar face and it isn't Purdee's. Yup, that is Samuel - credited as Sam back then - Jackson. It is a smallish part but he plays the lower echelon drug dealer like the Jackson we all love and you can't help but think they cast the wrong guy. Samuel Jackson as Super Fly has a nice ring to it. He was to play Shaft ten years later.



Priest is still in Europe but no longer fighting in a Revolution but in a legal business. He hears that his old friend and partner Eddie from the first film has been killed along with his gang. There is more violence in the opening few minutes than Super Fly had in the entire film. A sign of the times. He returns to America to get revenge - but he seems to have forgotten that in the original Eddie set him up. They could not get the same actor because Carl Lee had died of an overdose in 1986. When the new gang run by Hector (Carlos Carrasco) hears he is back they decide they better kill Priest first. But he is Super Fly. They should have known better. This isn't terrible but the action scenes are totally amateurish and the ending is shockingly unsatisfying. The big build-up and then . . . Hector becomes a witness for the cops? Seriously? The best thing about the film is Leonard Thomas's laugh. He plays the second in command and is a psycho but has this hee-haw laugh that made me laugh along with him every time. He was a favorite of Spike Lee. This isn't the end of Super Fly in the movies.



I should mention that Curtis Mayfield is back with five songs that are fine though not up to the standard of the original film. In the same year - whether before or after I don't know - he was in a terrible accident that paralyzed him though he continued to perform. Mixed in with his songs are a few rap songs from other artists and not being a rap fan, I thought they were distracting.