ceejayred
I picked up Coffy as part of a 2-movie set packaged with Friday Foster. I was pleasantly surprised with how much I liked Coffy.Pam Grier is a strong female lead during a time when strong female leads were rare, especially in the blaxploitation era. She plays a nurse named Coffy who goes out on a revenge-driven killing spree of any and all scumbags involved in the drug trade in her city. Her baby sister was a victim of drug pushers, setting off her rage. The violence is pretty standard for the genre, but there seems to be an undercurrent of sleaze, with women getting their tops torn off just for the hell of it. Director Jack Hill is a veteran of the genre and this is nothing new for one of his films. A solid plot without many logic gaps, good action, with actors such as Sid Haig and Robert Doqui to support Grier in her efforts to come off as heroine amongst the sleaze. Recommended for those who enjoy 70's styled sleazy action.
dworldeater
As far as blaxsploitation movies or action movies with a female lead, Coffy is by far one of the best. Pam Grier sets the screen on fire as Coffy, a working class black woman(a nurse) who is on a mission to take down the drug syndicate due to her kid sister's life is ruined by drugs. Writer/director Jack Hill did not have the largest budget to work with. However, Coffy is actually a well made film with rich dialogue and is taken more seriously than a lot of films of this type during this period. The film is very entertaining as well with some tongue in cheek humor, action and serious boobage. To see Pam Grier's rack alone is worth the price of admission. Nonetheless, Pam's unique presence and performance here is second to none. She is a stunning dark skinned goddess that is equally capable of being seductive and kicking ass. Not knowing any martial arts, she uses her wits and her sexuality to dispatch her male adversaries and comes across very natural and convincing. Coffy, very much a vigilante film, predates Deathwish by a year. I think that this is equally as good as Michael Winner/Charles Bronson's classic. Also, frequent Pam Grier/Jack Hill collaborator Sid Haig makes a memorable appearance as an Armenian heavy. He also has great chemistry with Pam and appears again with her in Foxy Brown. Foxy Brown, also directed by Jack Hill is great as well. However, it is not quite as well made as this is and Coffy by far is Pam Grier's best film and essential watching for fans of 70's action cinema.
utgard14
Pam Grier plays a nurse named Coffy who goes undercover to take out the drug dealers who got her sister hooked. Sexy, violent, gritty blaxploitation classic. Pam Grier in all her glory is reason alone to check this one out. Sid Haig is one of the bad guys and is amusing in a scummy sort of way. The cheesetastic songs ("Coffy, baby, sweet as a chocolate bar") are great. Love the cat fights! Lots of violence, coarse language, and nudity. Most of this is good fun but the death of one character in particular, a pimp named King George, is pretty rough to watch. Still, it's a good one. This would make my short list of must-see blaxploitation films, for sure.
BA_Harrison
Quentin Tarantino's fixation with Pam Grier, the star of Coffy, resulted in him casting her as the lead in his 1997 movie Jackie Brown; QT's worship of the actress really comes as no surprise—she's a B-movie nerd's wet dream come true, a foxy, feisty, take-no-crap bad-ass mama with a body to die for. Grier's unforgettable performance, along with no-nonsense direction from Jack Hill and an excellent supporting cast (including Hill regular Sid Haig) ensure that Coffy is not only one of the best blaxploitation films ever, but also one of the best exploitation films of any type, period.The film combines all the trappings one expects from a pimped-out early 70s revenge thriller aimed primarily at a black audience—big afros (so handy for hiding weapons in), cool music, loud suits, wide ties, flares, pimps, hos, and drug dealers—along with the regular gratuitous violence and nudity one would hope to find in a standard low-budget grindhouse style flick of the era. In Coffy, every woman loses her top and all the bad guys meet suitably nasty fates (gruesome deaths including being dragged behind a car until a bloody pulp and blasted in the balls by a shotgun!); all this to the sound of a funky waka-waka guitar riff.Something for everyone, then.
AD
