Sick Product of a Sick System

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

This film is a guilty pleasure, you know one of those movies that will never be on anyone's "best movie" list but one you can watch over and over again and secretly enjoy as much as those great films. A Piece of the Action is a stark contrast to the popular Blaxploitation films of the 1970s and stars the handsome and talented Sydney Poitier as Manny Durrell and the very funny and charming Bill Cosby as Dave Anderson. The film is about two high-end thieves (Poitier and Cosby) who are being blackmailed by a mysterious caller with a distinctive baritone voice. The caller agrees not to turn over what he knows to the police if they agree to donate their time to the Community Improvement Center which works with "incorrigible" youth from the inner city. The remainder of the movie involves the two thieves partnering up to work at the center's job preparedness program while also looking for the blackmailer and avoiding the crooks they stole from. Juggling all these things create some amusing encounters.My favorite parts involve Poitier's interaction with the teens. He's cool and suave and doesn't take anything off the rebellious teens. Over the next few weeks, the teens develop pride in who they are, learn the value of a dollar and hard work, and develop the necessary skills for getting and holding down a job. There is some fantastic dialogue like Barbara's (Sheryl Lee Ralph) Poverty Pimp speech directed at teacher Ms. Thomas. There are also some touching moments, i.e. Willie talking about his brother Timmy. I also like the romantic relationship that forms between Cosby's Anderson (Who knew he had a sexy side) and Lila French (Denise Nicholas), the Center's Director.The colloquialisms, clothes, dances and music are admittedly dated (although the music soundtrack is awesome). However, some of the over-arching themes are still relevant like having pride in your race, dealing with stereotypes of black youth, etc. I really hope we see a remake of this movie as well as the other two films that partnered Poitier and Cosby – Uptown Saturday Night and Lets Do It Again. This is the strongest of the three films and deserves its place in Black Film history.

As the film that marked his initial retirement from acting, then this isn't a bad film for Sidney Poitier to bow out on. He even gets to teach a class of unruly kids and educate them on discipline and self-respect, almost like it was a decade earlier.Although this is regarded as part of the Cosby-Poitier comedy trilogy, A Piece of the Action is more like a comedy thriller than an overt humour vehicle. Most of the laughs - if, indeed, you agree there are any - arise naturally out of the piece, rather than Poitier's friends coming on and doing hammed up "turns" as was the case in Uptown Saturday Night. The film has a lot to say on the human condition, and, while heavy- handed in the way it says it, does so well. Poitier - now fully ensconced in making black cinema, seemingly as a reaction to the sexless perfect black men he'd played to a white audience for so long - even gets to defy that he's anyone's "boy" in this movie. And until one of his comeback roles gave us an "MF" (1992's Sneakers) then this is the only place you'll hear him say something like "titty sucker".Seeing these films through the eyes of Harry Belafonte is perhaps most rewarding, as he was scathing of the original script to Uptown Saturday Night in his 2011 autobiography. The star, friend, and sometimes rival of Sidney revealed that he found the comedy to be predictable and trite, and advised Poitier to stay one step ahead of the audience by bringing in a sea of names, one after the other, to do unconnected skits... himself contributing a Godfather parody. Belafonte had no interest in minor roles for the two sort-of sequels, and, having thought they'd got away with it once, had no desire to chance it again.Another comment of Harry's was that Poitier had first stepped into the director's chair to replace a director who was removed from 1972's Buck and the Preacher. Belafonte noted that, while serviceable, everyone knew that Poitier wasn't Martin Scorcese, including himself. It's a fair assessment, and a reasonable profile of a man who was just interested in getting movies made without undue artistic flair. Sidney Poitier wasn't in the same league as many of the men that had guided him before a lens, no Stanley Kramer, or no Norman Jewison. But then he was capable of delivering a diverting package that was easy for anyone to enjoy, and no one ever rated Stir Crazy on its mise-en-scène.

This movie was funny, but not as funny as the other movies with Bill Cosby and Sidney Poitier, such as Uptown Saturday Night. Those crazy con artists almost get away with murder in this movie. There are a lot of famous actors and actresses in this movie. James Earl Jones. Janet Dubois. Ernest Thomas. This was Sheryl Lee Ralph's first movie. And she had one of the best roles in the entire movie. Sidney Potier plays the same type of character in every movie that he is in. This movie took place when Bill Cosby was actually funny. The entire plot of this movie was predictable. This movie has a feel good happy ending. The music in this movie was the bomb!

Worth a look on late night TV otherwise skip this misfire.Piece of the Action starts off like a crime caper and ends up wanting to be a morality play. Problem is there is no character development. We are supposed to accept Cosby and Poitier as personalities not actors playing fully developed characters.This is an uneven script. You can almost see two movies cut into this thing. There's the crime caper.And there's the Welcome Back Kotter type class of losers who need to get jobs. This is the morality play part. And it's all jive.We're supposed to accept Cosby and Poitier as wonderful guys who lead blessed lives even though they are no better than the mob guys they swindle. What a mess.