Simply A Masterpiece

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

I remember actually seeing "Let's Do It Again" in the theater with a friend when I was very young, and I also remember the audience (mostly kids) laughing like crazy. Sure enough, having just watched this film again for the first time in 30 years, it holds up as a decent enough comedy full of familiar TV and movie faces to anyone who was a 70's kid.Sidney Poitier and Bill Cosby are fantastic and have great chemistry, no doubt about it. This leads to many funny scenes, such as them hiding behind the couch in the woman's apartment. Cosby, however, is a little more the star here, and gets to showboat on his own a bit more than Poitier. The dirty-talk scene in the restaurant with Cosby and his very hot wife is hilarious.There are even more hot girls to look at besides Cosby's wife, such as the one in the beginning at Cosby's work (with an amazing pair of legs), and the molls of both gangsters. Jimmy Walker is decent, and the film thankfully keeps his schtick at its useful minimum. His dad on Good Times, John Amos, is fine as a tough-guy gangster. Ozzie Davis, good as he is, bores the viewer with his character, which is a necessary character for a few scenes but who no one really wants to see. And Calvin Lockhart is always fun to watch in anything he does.I'm surprised that no one told Cosby that with that beard, he looks 55 years old. This won't be a film that you have repeat viewings with, but it's a good 70's comedy without a doubt.

This is my favorite of the Bill Cosby/Sidney Poitier trilogy from the 70's. The chemistry between these two is fantastic.Cosby and Poitier are friends and lodge brothers who are trying to save their lodge from demolition. They decide to take the meager building fund and place bets on a boxing match. The catch? The fighter they are going to bet on is a 5 to 1 underdog, and a hapless Jimmie Walker. Walker keeps getting knocked out by his sparring partners! How do they hope to win? Hypnosis!The actors are all first rate and there is fun all around. These films were a nice contrast to the "Blaxploitation" films of the 70's, as they provided more positive roles for many black actors. John Amos and Calvin Lockhart are rival gangsters who take the bets and then go after Cosby and Poitier. Denise Nicholas shines as Cosby's wife and the always great Ossie Davis is the leader of the lodge.Fans of the Cosby Show may be surprised by Cosby in these films. There is a great scene where Cosby and Nicholas engage in a bit of "dirty" talk in a restaurant. This is not Cliff and Claire Huxtable!Poitier directed these films and shows great ability. The scenes are staged well and the shots are never dull. It's a shame he didn't direct more.This film is worth it, if only for the scenes of Cosby trying to pass himself off as a gangster. His outfit has to be seen to be believed. Check this and Uptown Saturday Night and A Piece of the Action sometime.

I've seen this movie along with Uptown Saturday Night countless times and, this one being the better of the two, and I still crack up. Bill & Sidney are great together and it's a shame they haven't collaborated since the 70's.Jimmy Walker is simply "down right NAYISTEE!! with laughs".I'm waiting for the DVD.

What is surprising is Oscar-winning actor Sidney Poitier didn't have an even more extensive directing career (at least 9 films to his credit) because "Let's Do It Again" is deftly crafted and funny. Believe it or not, that's quite impressive in an era (1970s so-called Blaxploitation films) hard pressed to find material suitable to African American actors and comedians. In fact by the mid 1970s a few "Let's Do It Again" cast members joined the NAACP in blasting Hollywood for the evident paucity of material and roles for talented blacks because much of what emerged was exploitive stereotypes and had the effect of mainstreaming distorted ethnic and racial images.In this movie, however, a bearded Bill Cosby (Billy Foster), clean-shaven Poitier (Clyde Williams) team up as do-good Atlanta fraternal order brothers who play the odds to "con" threatening criminal punks so they could cheerfully give gambling winnings to a pet charity. Of course, they have to impossibly hypnotize Jimmy Walker's reluctant and unlikely bone thin boxer (Bootney Farnsworth) enabling him to successfully fight heavier and craftier opponents; convince their beautiful but reluctant wives to go in on the con and, after pulling off a preposterous megabucks "sucker bet" caper, escape the played mobsters by hoofing it through a series of apartment buildings. In one of the cinema's longest and funniest foot chases ever, the duo dashes through an unlocked apartment door running smack into a dining room not quite interrupting a family dinner. The folks seated around the dining table are incredulous for a quick moment and, well, maybe we should leave a few surprises.The movie doesn't escape the "Mack" flamboyance of the decade, nor did it avoid the annoying 70s "wah-wah" disco soundtrack but it doesn't pander to the lowest common denominator evident in other movies whose stars were African American. On the other hand, performances by Denise Nicholas (Beth Foster), Calvin Lockhart, (Biggie Smalls) deliver a sense of dignity that would not have emerged under the hands of any lesser director in that era. In the pre-Huxtable Cosby universe, a comic actor shines. Of course, Cosby had resisted such notions during his successful run of the NBC-TV series, playing down and turning away Emmy nominations for Best Actor. In the younger Cosby's personna, there is none of the self-mocking. He's not playing a cuddly version of himself. He's perhaps funnier than anything he presented to the generation who grew up with the Huxtables and "Ghost Dad" (also directed by Sidney Poitier), which makes it plausible for younger viewers to dust off this more than quarter-century old relic and get a kick out of what Poitier was able to do with Timothy March and Richard Wesley's story and script.Aside from not descending into the group of movies that fall under the category of 70s "exploitation flicks", there is no social comment here. "Let's Do It Again" will give us a grittier maybe funnier Cosby than anything Generation Xers are likely to remember. If you want to escape, indulge in popcorn and have a laugh, this is a fun film.