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Carl Lee, Charles McGregor, Julius Harris

Backed by Curtis Mayfield's enticing score, this groovy 1970s action drama stars Ron O'Neal as big, bad Youngblood Priest, a cocaine dealer who realizes the thug life isn't for him and puts together o...( read more  read more... )ne last deal that will net him enough money so he can start over. But he knows his "colleagues" won't quite agree with his escape plan, so he must find a way to save his soul and come out of the whole mayhem alive.

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73% liked it

4,421 ratings

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90% liked it

21 critics

R, 1 hr. 36 min.

Directed by: Carl Lee, Charles McGregor, Gordon Parks, Julius Harris, Nate Adams, Polly Niles, Ron O'Neal, Sheila Frazier, Yvonne Delaine

Release Date: August 4, 1972

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DVD Release Date: January 13, 2004

Stats: 304 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (304)

  • stopitgoaway
    October 17, 2009
    stopitgoaway
    As far as i'm concerned the street drug cocaine, refined but corrosive WHITE powder, (It is the hydrochloric acid used to make this powder that destroys the nose) is a superb metaphor for the white oppression that the character's in Super Fly are caught up in. The real pusherman ...( read more)in the film is white, and far more dangerous than any drug. Witness the scene when Scatter is killed with an overdose. A powerful message that seems to have been lost on most of the folks reviewing this film. The black characters in Super Fly are all victims, trying to make the best of what they have, and there is another, just as powerful message, about the emptiness of the white American dream. Priest may want out of the drugs business, not because he hates drugs, but because of the endless hassle that comes with selling anything illegal. When pressed by his lover as to what he intends to do once out of the life, he has no real answer to give. There is no answer. What is there to the modern world other than conformity and brain death. I suspect that a character as intelligent as Priest knows this all too well. Yet such is the addiction of The American Dream, Priest even utters the words "FREE TO THINK", and the audience is left with a feeling of ambiguity. What really happens when you get what you want, it becomes worthless / meaningless more evidence of the humanity present in this film and the position the characters occupy.

    The characters in this film are not one dimensional, they have great depth and like all real humans, are flawed, that is what gives the human race it's humanity and it is this humanity which is under threat. Witness the scene when Priest is approached by a group of activist's, who see him as a threat to themselves and their future, a future which is little more than the chance to get along with ones oppressors. Priest tells them that if they come back with an armed black America he will be only too happy to join them. Though they are misguided as a nation under oppression is the same no matter what colour skin your oppressor has. Priest knows this and so do the activist's. Another masterstroke of this film is to cast an actor who is neither black or white, but of mixed race, thus allowing any reasonable audience, to identify with the character. Which also makes him something of an outsider, straddling the world of blacks and whites a world we all know to be made of grey. Just as the ending is grey, Priest may have escaped his immediate oppressor, but his future is unclear. The final image of the film is one of the greatest of any film ever. The camera rests on the peek of a skyscraper, which looks all to like a junkie's needle topped syringe, a symbol of the addiction that is capitalism and the threat that capitalism holds over the entire planet.

    This film has so much to say about modern life, our struggle for personal identity, the pursuit of happiness and the endlessly shrinking line between freedom and enslavement that i could easily fill a book on it.

    At a time when on-screen human beings are being reduced to the level of silicone. Super fly is a breath of sanity in a world rapidly loosing it's mind, to the evil of control. The 1970's seem to me to be the most honest period of film making the screen has ever seen. It would be impossible to make such a film today.
  • franktowers
    December 4, 2008
    franktowers
    he is one smooooth cat
  • Saxia
    July 1, 2008
    Saxia
    I'm not really a fan of this one, but the soundtrack was awesome :) Curtis Mayfield is a legend!!!

    ...( read more)chiave/cover_superfly.gif" border="0" alt="Curtis Mayfield">
  • DrBenway
    June 16, 2008
    DrBenway
    One of the earliest, roughest-made and best above other "blaxploitation" films that followed, this film is going to make an excellent addition to libraries of film lovers. As African-American critics bashed its' influence on cocaine use and the glorification of criminals, the fi...( read more)lmmakers observed that they were just telling it like it was.

    Superfly has it all, and hasn't a useless moment in it's running time which consists of slow scenes for fans of drama, enough action for thrillseekers, naturalistic dialogue, the charismatic Ron O'Neal and some badass fashion. Hardly a hero, he deals coke to his people, but wants to pull himself out of the scene and runs into trouble when greed and betrayal push him in a corner.

    Then there's the soundtrack layed down by Curtis Mayfield that no other film in the genre could match.
    Photobucket
  • Chiefilms
    March 1, 2008
    Chiefilms
    If Pimpin' was this easy I don't even know man. One of the best soundtracks ever, love Curtis.
  • chitownguy08
    October 21, 2009
    chitownguy08
    LOL Thats y u smoke it or sth away from it. Loved The Pusherman.
  • Dracula787
    October 10, 2009
    Dracula787
    This has long been known as the ?other? blaxploitation film that kind of sits in the shadow of Shaft. I wouldn?t say that his is as good as that other film, mainly because Ron O'Neal is not as good as Richard Roundtree. Still, this is probably a more outlandish film as it uses ...( read more)a criminal as its subject rather than a private investigator. The whole thing is rather crudely made and the action is not particularly exciting. I also found a lot of the very long and leery sex scenes to be in pretty bad taste, I?m no prude but the way this movie tends to stop its storytelling for a good five minute at a time in order to focus on gratuitous banging makes it closer to soft core porn than an actual film.
  • lesleyanorton
    August 29, 2009
    lesleyanorton
    Early blaxploitation film, about a sophisticated drug dealer running One Last Big Deal in order to get out of the life, while partners and corrupt police try to keep him.in. Cheaply made, and oh-so-seventies, wiith one of the greatest soundtracks of all time soaring above the act...( read more)ion.
  • zdravkoduck
    August 21, 2009
    zdravkoduck
    Super Fly aka Priest is New Yorks top cocaine dealer. His daily routine consists of bitches and coke and ocassional visits with his connect. So what would make this man who seems to have it all wanna quit the business for good? guess you'll have to find out. A total 360 drug movi...( read more)e it didn't romanticize or glamourize any aspects of his life like say Scarface did which is why I hate a certain percentage of the earth. You were just thrown in it during a time in which Priest has questioned his own lifestyle choices. Curtis Mayfield score and cameo appearance is top notch. Freddies Dead, that what I said.
  • nategilbert7
    July 16, 2009
    nategilbert7
    This is one of the first movies vaulted away in my earliest childhood memories. so you can imagine how I was raised...

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