Directed by Jack Arnold. I don't know how many westerns came out of the blaxploitation film trend of the '70s, but this one is great. Taking place just after the civil war, Fred Williamson and D'Urville Martin are bounty hunters on the trail of an outlaw who has terrorized a small town without a sheriff. Williamson takes the job, deputizes his partner, and the pair begin enforcing a tough breed of law -- including new racial statutes.
Williamson is tough and cool, but Martin steals the show by keeping it on the edge of comedy. The bass-and-strings soul music score characteristic of black films of the period runs counter to what you'd expect from westerns of the time, but I like that. Every western doesn't have to sound like Sergio Morricone and shouldn't.
The strengths here are in the charisma. There's a decent plot and a strong ending. But truth said, if it weren't for D'Urville Martin's great comic presence and the black power sub-plot here, this would be a bit of a paint-by-number Eastwood-style western. Yet I can't imagine there's a better blaxploitation western better than this.
I hesitated to show the title above, but what is this, Entertainment Weekly? Look, that's the name of the movie. Though over the years it has been re-released to screens as "The Black Bounty Hunter," "The Black Bounty Killer" and is currently on DVD packaged as "Boss." Must see.
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