- Title: Coffy
- IMDb: link
Pam Grier stars in this 1973 blaxploitation thriller as nurse turned vigilante Flower Child “Coffy” Coffin who sets her sights on revenge after her younger sister (Karen Williams) gets addicted to cocaine and her oldest friend (William Elliott) is beaten within an inch of his life for refusing to go on the take by the other local cops.
While the writing and dialogue of writer/director Jack Hill‘s script is a mixed bag at times, Grier shines on screen using her wits, beauty, and moxie to gun down local dealers in the opening scene and later go undercover as a Jamaican prostitute to target pimp and drug supplier King George (Robert DoQui) and his mafia associate Arturo Vitroni (Allan Arbus). After being found out, she faces an inconvenient truth about her less-than-shining knight of a boyfriend (Booker Bradshaw) who turns out to be as crooked as everyone else and wipes his hands of her once she discovers his dirty little secrets. And so Coffy adds one more name to her list.
While earning mixed reactions on its release, Coffy, and the following year’s Foxy Brown, is notable for turning Pam Grier into the first female African-American action film lead for a genre that, up until this point, was headlined by men. As you’d expect from the genre, Coffy offers its share of both skin and violence, much of it against the women in the film, but Grier gives as good as she gets as our vengeful star gets the upper hand more often than not against pimps, jealous hookers, gangsters, crooked politicians, and gangsters who consistently underestimate her.
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