Gordon's War (1973)

Blaxploitation films have been a favorite of mine since at least the 7th Grade when I first saw Shaft and bought a 45" of the theme (I used to listen to it on my Walkman while I walked to school then to get pumped up for the day) and also after I caught Scream Blacula, Scream on cable during a sick day.  My eyes were then open to a new sub-genre that I've spent the last 20+ years appreciating! 


Lately, I've been discovering some gems of the genre that I maybe hadn't heard of outside of the odd trailer popping up on a compilation disc; titles like Cotton Comes To Harlem, Cool Breeze, Trouble Man, Hit-Man, Black Fist, and of course Gordon's War.

"Say, aren't the dude from The Terminator?"

Gordon's War is a revenge film with an anti-drug message, so it was a no-brainer for me to check out!  The late, great Paul Winfield (Lt. Traxler in The Terminator) stars as Captain Gordon Hudson who, upon returning from Vietnam, learns that his wife became a junkie and died while he was away.  Talk about a heavy homecoming, right?  He vows to rid the streets of pimps and drug pushers and, along with three of his old 'Nam buddies, Gordon sets up recon on several of Harlem's key scumbags.   Gordon's team screws over/robs/shuts down/beats down a pimp called Big Pink, another dude called Luther The Pimp, and drug kingpin "Spanish" Harry Martinez (played by genre vet Gilbert Lewis -- you might know him as Detective Frank Linto in 1992's Candyman). 

"We're loaded for bear...if bear was a pimp and a pusher man."

It takes a while, but soon "Spanish" Harry and his men are onto Gordon's team; there's a great, tense sequence where the crew is separated while waiting for "Spanish" Harry...only he's got the upper hand on them and it's obvious that the hardline crew is in trouble!  A lot of cross-cutting and near montage work makes this a really effective sequence actually! 

The film is directed by the late, great Ossie Davis (long before TV's Evening Shade and Grumpy Old Men, Davis was a prolific civil rights activist, along with his late wife Rubie Dee; he directed several, early Blaxploitation pictures, including one of the genre's first, 1970's Cotton Comes To Harlem). Davis shows a great knowledge for film-making here, keeping the story moving and the action/drama flowing. One cool bit that I picked up on was how much Mario Van Peeples' New Jack City paid homage to this film -- this has to be one of the first anti-drug films to show near naked people cutting/bagging heroin under a black light. 


Soundtrack-wise, I wouldn't say the music was as memorable as most other Blaxploitation films, but I was still bobbing my head and shaking my hips while laying in bed watching. 

And, hey, I'm all for a movie where drug dealers are hunted and killed . . . though this one is not as on the nose about it or quite as violent as 1973's Coffy. Instead of merely killing the pushers and pimps, Gordon and his crew hunt them and keep tabs on them via some innovative (for the time) methods before ripping them off of their product and their money.

Luther the Pimp ain't so bad with a switchblade in his face!

Par for the course with the genre, Gordon's War has some scenes of brutal violence:  a pimp has his legs hobbled, a local scumbag is forced to shoot his own product into his veins (much like that great opening scene in Coffy!), a henchman gets his face burnt off via an ingenious lighter and underarm deodorant spray combo, and there are several bloody shotgun blasts to the chest.  While it's not the most violent for the genre, it still delivers! 

Take that sucka!

Speaking of Gordon's crew, they're a lot like The A-Team or Tom Cruise's Mission: Impossible teams; each guy brings his own flare and strengths to the group. One cool scene involves one of the guys undercover as a shoe shiner on the streets, accosting a fly dope-pusher; he insists on shining the dude's platform leather boots that only a member of KISS would wear today....of course, he coats the boats with a UV paint so that they can track him at night with a set of UV binoculars! 

I'd probably try and rock these boots.

There are also some slight echoes of this film in 1977's Rolling Thunder, where William Devane stars as a Vietnam vet returning home, only to have his reward ripped off from him as he is forced to watch his wife and child get murdered....and he loses his right hand in the garbage disposal. Like, Gordon's War, Devane vows revenge and recruits his old Army buddy (Tommy Lee Jones) for recon and blood-spattered revenge!


In the end, it was another fun Blaxploitation film that I hadn't seen before. I'm actually surprised that it hasn't been remade today....


PS:  Also look for a "blink and you missed it" cameo from Grace Jones!