The film by the South African director can be seen as a lost work of blaxploitation from the 70s. There is some charm in it, but also some doubt.
Rambo remains, of course, a great, undemanding entertainment. The problem is that the further into the forest (jungle), the harder it is to swallow the bitter taste of ideology.
Tony becomes Shirley’s driver and goes with him on tour of the American South. The real purpose of a virtuoso who lives alone above Carnegie Hall is not to earn money, but to contribute to the slow process of the racial equation in places where it is most difficult.
Spike Lee has mastered the ability to deconstruct and rework blacksploitation cinema. Unlike, for example, Quentin Tarantino, he does not refer to the historical genre in order to duplicate it, constructing a modern, attractive copy of it, but uses his imagination, breaking harmful patterns.
Raoul Peck created a thoroughly personal identity manifesto. The narrative consists of archival materials depicting the struggle of the African-American movement, visual film quotes, fragments of contemporary protests and manifestations, and all this is bound by a text read by Samuel L. Jackson, which is an adaptation of the James Baldwin’s never completed book.
