The Return of Superfly Reviews

In this belated sequel to SUPERFLY (1972), Superfly (Nathan Purdee) is back, and he's caught between a rock and a hard place. After years of going straight, Superfly is coerced by federal drug agents into putting out the word that he wants to be a pusher once more. As the film begins, one of Superfly's former colleagues (Rony Clanton) is blown away by ruthless drug dealers who are infinitely more vicious than those who ruled the trade in Superfly's heyday. Hector (Carlos Carrasco), a cop turned crook, and his righthand man Joey (Leonard Thomas) control the area's drug traffic, and they suspect Superfly is working with the government when he returns to the scene. After he's severely beaten by Hector's men and a female friend is cut down by bullets meant for him, Superfly gets good and mad, and decides to go after Hector and his thugs his own way. At the height of the popularity of blaxploitation films in the early 1970s, SUPERFLY, starring Ron O'Neal and directed by Gordon Parks, Jr., was attacked on the grounds of its dubious morality--its hero, after all, was a drug pusher. Similar condemnations aren't likely to be leveled at this film, which manages to be both up-to-the-minute and out-of-date. What gave the original film its punch was its strong anti-establishment tone. Here, the anti-hero comes across like Eliot Ness after kicking a drug habit. For all its current street jive and rap songs, the film is a stolid action movie, an urban drama that could have been produced years ago. Setting the film even further apart from its predecessor, race isn't even an integral issue here--change a few lines and the main character could have been played by Dolph Lundgren.