Sorry it’s been awhile, I can only type with one hand right now. At any rate, on to round two (Read Part 1: Barb Wire VS. Barbarella) of the ongoing series celebrating the female action hero. This time around it’s Foxy Brown and Cleopatra Jones.
Let’s start with Ms. Foxy Brown.
We are introduced to Foxy through a groovy title sequence in which she models anumber of different outfits, dancing and kicking to the beat of her very own theme song. When she finally appears onscreen in the course of the film, it is to rescue her no good brother from some hired muscle sent to collect an outstanding debt. Unfortunately her brother does not share the same instinct to protect family, and soon double crosses Foxy by turning her ex-cop boyfriend into some nasty drug dealers who have been looking for him. This betrayal leads to her man’s death, and ignites Foxy’s fire for vengeance.
The head of the crime syndicate is a white lady who runs a modeling agency which secretly seeks out prostitutes to service important goverment officials. Foxy works her way into the organization, seeking to destroy it from the inside. Along the way she reunites a hooker with her family, gets into a brawl at a lesbian bar, gets chained up in a shack and force fed heroin, joins a vigilante group, and castrates the head bitch’s boyfriend. She then hands her the jar with said boyfriend’s genitalia floating around like a pickle. Good times.
Foxy is a pretty badass bitch. She takes a few beatings, suffers a tragic death, and shakes off opiates, and is still standing triumphant at the end. While her fighting style does not come from any form of martial arts background, it is pure street, and she always finds some way to dispatch the bad guys (or girls). Her proficiency with guns is even better, and Foxy has no problem pulling a piece on anyone, including her own brother. Pam Grier inhabits Foxy with such a sense of cool confidence it’s hard not to love her.
Fierce Factor: 9 out of 10
Cleopatra Jones follows in Brown’s footsteps, riding the wave of ’70’s blaxploitation films. Tamara Dobson stars as the title character, a government agent determined to eliminate the drug trade once and for all. Despite the drug angle, Jones is a little more silly at times than her predecessor. In no way is this a bad thing. I enjoyed Foxy Brown, but Cleopatra Jones was much more fun.
The movie opens with Jones torching an overseas heroin field, inciting the ire of yet another white lady crime boss. This time however, the boss is none other than the fantastic Shelley Winters, whose character is called only by the name Mommy. She chews the scenery so fiercely I’m sure she gained an additional 20 pounds as a result. On top of all this, Mommy is also a very over the top lesbian who constantly harasses her female assistant.
At any rate, in retaliation Mommy frames a friend of Jones’ for drug possession, forcing her to return to the States to clear his name. Unlike our friend Foxy, Cleo is a trained martial artist and weapons expert. She even drives a badass car that has a secret weapons panel, and at one point she busts out an uzi to dispatch a sniper.
The climactic battle occurs between Jones and Mommy in a junkyard, in which Mommy is clad head to toe in black leather, and Jones looks like she just stepped off the runway.
While Dobson’s performance acting wise is solid, her fight sequences leave a little something to be desired. Overall the movie is fun from start to finish and definitetly worth watching. I would love to see this movie updated.
Fierce Factor: 8 out of 10
