Very Cool!!!

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

"New Jack City" director Mario Van Peebles and scenarists Sy Richardson and Dario Scardapane pay homage to virtually every memorable Hollywood western with "Posse," an elegant inventory of clichés ranging from "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" to "Once Upon a Time in the West." Derivative as all get-out, this R-rated horse opera delivers a little bit of everything, from a search for gold in Cuba to a desperate flight across the mountainous badlands of the American west. Although it borrows from every iconic oater, "Posse" qualifies as one of the best African-American westerns, with a distinguished cast. "White Sands" lenser Peter Menzies Jr.'s stylistic cinematography endows this adventure a mythic, larger-than-life grandeur. Aside from the atmospheric settings, "Posse" benefits from Van Peebles's muscular helming and charismatic performance as the protagonist. He wears a flat-brimmed black hat, has a couple of six-guns holstered in belts crisscrossing his waist. Of course, he can brandish them like chained lightning and plug his adversaries dead-center with every shot. Peebles surrounds himself with a first-rate cast, including Woody Strode, Stephen Baldwin, Tommy 'Tiny' Lister, Blair Underwood, Billy Zane, and Richard Jordan. This rugged, hard-riding horse opera unfolds initially in Cuba during the Spanish-American War in the 1890s. Arrogant U.S. Army Colonel Graham (Billy Zane of "Titanic") orders Jesse Lee (Mario Van Peebles of "Heartbreak Ridge") to take a group of predominantly African-Americans in civilian clothes, infiltrate enemy lines, and bring back whatever he can find. Jesse Lee, Jimmy J. 'Little J' Teeters (Stephen Baldwin of "The Usual Suspects"), and Obobo (Tommy Lister of "Friday") stumble upon a chest of gold coins. When Colonel Graham happens upon them-prepared to shoot them as deserters and confiscate the loot for himself-Jesse shoots him in the eye and escapes with the loot. One of Graham's disgraced African-American troopers, Weezie (Charles Lane of "True Identity") turns against Graham and helps Jesse and company get away from Cuba. They are shipped out in coffins and taken to the mainland in Florida. From there our heroes light out for the Wild West. Graham follows them in hot pursuit with a patch over one eye and greed pumping through his veins. Graham is every inch a dastard, and he maintains his own 'posse' that has earned the name 'the Iron Brigade.' Tirelessly, they track our heroes across the west to an African-American town, Freemanville, fears the angry, racist whites in the nearby town of Cutterstown. Sheriff Bates (Richard Jordan of "Lawman") is one of several men who killed Jesse's father, King David (Robert Hooks of "Trouble Man"), and Jesse has vengeance loaded into his six-shooters. Incredibly enough, the scene that sticks in the memory is the death of Jimmy J. 'Little J' Teeters (Stephen Baldwin) because a gang of angry whites beat 'Little J' to death in front of a crowd of African-Americans. The irony here is revelatory. "Posse" proclaims proudly the exploits of African-Americans on the frontier. Specifically, Jesse's unit Buffalo Soldiers of the U.S. Army's 10th Cavalry Regiment. Similarly, the legendary but largely forgotten Hollywood actor Woody Strode serves as the anonymous narrator who introduces and concludes the movie. Much of what he utters is designed to challenge audiences with a limited acquaintance with African-American history. Indeed, the other thing that sets "Posse" apart from every other western is its theatrical celebration of African-Americans and African-American History. Van Peebles orchestrates some slam-bang action scenes with lots of gunplay and explosions. The explosion that destroys the Gatlin gun in town looks like a napalm strike. As symbols of rank and authority, Zane and Jordan constitute two truly slimy villains. Zane's creepy Graham howls "rewards and retributions" throughout "Posse." Rounding out the cast are Pam Grier, Isaac Hayes, and his own father Melvin Van Peebles. Although its message gets heavy-handed at time, "Posse" ranks as a landmark African-American movie, a solid western, and an entertaining shoot'em up with a touch of inevitable romance.

In many Western lore, cowboy legends about lawmen, outlaws, and life in the Old Frontier period have been mostly centered around Caucasians. Very obscure do we ever examine the Wild West where African-Americans have the chance to tell their own tales about them running their own cities, laying down their own laws and fighting off against outlaws who want to stir trouble in their neck of the woods. There's not much reading material about this subject and very little Hollywood movies are ever made about African-Americans striving in the rough scenery in the Old Frontier."Posse" was a pivotal step to tell a great story in this compelling and refreshing story that is loaded with originality. It had potential to be a really good story, sadly director Mario Van Peebles tends to go overboard by practically rubbing the story right in-your-face to get his message across. At times the historical references become so overly done, the actual story becomes secondary which can be very distracting and disjointed. It may look good for a documentary, but for a movie, it makes the entire story very thin. Aside from that the quick-cuts from scenes are very distracting and the noisy backgrounds are also too loud that it upstages the dialogue provided.Van Peebles is without a doubt an excellent director. He was outstanding in the 1991 film "New Jack City." So where are the flaws in "Posse"? Did he feel that the dryness from the basic story needed some much-needed tweaking on the visual references? Did he just lean towards the style and forgot that a story to develop we also need substancebecause were weren't getting any here? Set after the Spanish-American War U.S. Army 10th Calvary Regiment led by Jessie Lee (Van Peebles)joins forces with Weezie (Charles Lane), Angel (Tone Loc), Obobo (TinyLister) and Caucasian ally Little J (Stephen Baldwin) courageously step up to winback their city from the corruption from racist outlaw Colonel Graham (Billy Zane). The fight scenes feel very anti-climactic and the soundtrack just carries on like it's a an overlong music video.Once the war is over, the Calvary heads home to Freemanville, where Jessie grew up. Only to realize that his community has changed and is now been taken over by racist neighbors and a law enforcement that caters to white people. Therefore, the posse joins forces to restore their town and to wipe out the corruption.For a story of this magnitude, it had a lot of great material for a an interesting and provocative Western story that has never been looked upon. But instead we get a simplified, lazily scripted visually-laden shoot-em-up fight between good against evil. The story line is never in full focus and the characters are not that easy to care about because the development is poorly structured. It's just too dependent on action but it's all without purpose.You've heard of the quote, "too many cooks spoil the broth". Well Van Peebles casts a plethora of big name stars from Isaac Hayes to Blair Underwood from Pam Grier to Nipsy Russell. Well as big as those names are, they don't really have much to do here and that an extra would've been better cast in their roles.When all the dust settles all the message we get is that white people then and now continually deprive the black man from equal opportunity, no matter how much they have succeeded over years. The freely utilized preachy ways were handed out to what the story failed to offer. If these closing messages were with us the whole time, "Posse" would've been a better film instead of succumbing to an endless array of sloganeering.

Not overly dramatic; most westerns aren't. Honestly, I thought it was better than Tombstone. Don't be a fuddy-duddy bigot and think all westerns have to be Caucasian-- if it's a good movie say so. Colonel Graham(Billy Zane, I think) is hyper funny in this movie--keeping your interest all the way. His bantering back and forth with Jesse(MarioVP), Lil Jay(Baldwin), and the others was something else! If you don't like Mario Van Peebles' movies, don't let that keep you from seeing this movie! I don't remember liking any other role that he does in any other movie(except possibly Mama Flora's Family), but I do give him an A for this. He acted "seriously" as a leader of men. If you only looked at Jesse Lee in this movie, you would be thinking that he's a Denzel or Hanks type actor. Then, add in Blair Underwood(He is the main Uncle Tom: Carver), Mario's real life dad(Melvin, I believe), Big Daddy Kane(father Time), Sheriff Bates, and "Denzel's wife" in Antwone Fisher/FBI agent in Ransom(Jesse Lee's lover). There are also other famous stars(Grier, VelJohnson, Hayes, etc.) in minor roles. Meteor Man once tried to do a similar thing(a lot of good to very good actors in one place), but that movie has nothing at all on this! It seems like everyone did a pretty good or better job. What's under the hood? It's a western that has humor, harmonious characters, and war between people just trying to survive(with only agility, amateur gun, and a few fast guns and able fighters on their side), and extremely racist people and their allies(with military weapons on their side). A few gunfighting scene seems a little surreal; most of them seems at least good. It also was well written. That being said, tiny parts appear to be illumatic in nature: the alternate religion and calling its doctrine the good book(bible has been called that) and crafting a king David(who had moralistic, but antibiblical beliefs). There are also 2 scenes of nudity(confined to the same area of the movie at about 1/2-2/3 way in): bathing in water and sex scene.

When I heard about and saw the trailers for "Posse" I was eagerly waiting for the film's release. African-Americans made up fully a third of all cowboys in the Old West, but were virtually non-existent in Hollywood's Old West, except as train porters or mammies. The only real black cowboy seen by most Americans was Woody Strode, thanks to John Ford ("Sergeant Rutledge," "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, "How the West Was Won"), Richard Brooks ("The Professionals") and Italian filmmakers ("Once Upon a Time in the West," "The Revengers," "The Unholy Four")."Posse," written, produced and directed by Mario Van Peebles, had promise. Unfortunately, it gets bogged down by cliches and a tired storyline. A rousing climax almost saves the film, though.The movie begins with a stark history lesson about the true accomplishments of blacks in the Old West, as told to Reginald and Warren Hudlin by an old man (the legendary Woody Strode). He then segues into the fictitious story of Jesse Lee...Lee (Mario Van Peebles) and his men are getting cut to pieces by the Spanish during the Spanish-American War while their commanding officer (a slimy, but effective Billy Zane) drinks Cognac miles away. Lee complains about the conditions and is arrested. Zane later promises to exonerate him and his men if they will pull off a mission for him -- namely to steal valuable documents from the Spanish. Stephen Baldwin is thrown in with Lee's gang because he's a troublemaker Zane wants to get rid of. The group pulls off the mission, but, instead of finding documents, they find gold bullion. They also find Zane and his cohorts waiting at the rendezvous point with guns to finish them off. Unfortunately for Zane, his men are like Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders -- long on bravado, short on skill. Lee's men, having been in combat, get the drop on Zane, kill most of his men and flee back to America as wanted men. (By the way, the method they use to get out of Cuba and back to America is original, but very creepy).The middle part of the film is spent showing Lee and his men (rapper Tone Loc, Baldwin, a whiny aide and a few spares) heading to New Orleans, where they meet up with Big Daddy Kane. They also run into Zane, who has been tracking them. The whole tracking plotline is hard to believe (remember how long it took John Wayne to track down Natalie Wood in "The Searchers"?), but it makes for good shootouts.Eventually, Lee and his men make it back to Lee's hometown, a black township full of freedmen. Such townships were numerous in the Old West, but survived only at the whim of white county officials (watch "Rosewood" for an example of what they often suffered from). The town is run by Richard Jordan as a greedy sheriff in cahoots with some crooked county officials. Throw in Zane and his own posse, along with a Gatling gun and you get the rousing climax.Mario Van Peebles is not much of an actor, but he has enough range and skill to carry the burden of being Jesse Lee. Baldwin is not quite up to par with brothers Alec and Daniel, but he holds his own, especially when he meets his demise at the hands of fellow whites. I liked Big Daddy Kane's soft-spoken, but proud and defiant, role as Father Time and the way he kept looking at his pocket watch before doing anything. Tone Loc was a waste, though, since he kept rapping like it was 1998 instead of 1898.The town basically had one purpose and that was to show off an impressive cast of black stars -- Melvin Van Peebles, Pam Grier, Reginald Vel Johnson and Nipsey Russell, among others. Of course, having a cameo meant biting the bullet (literally) in the finale.By the way, another problem for "Posse" was its setting. Many contributions and accomplishments by African-Americans came during the years following the Civil War, from 1865-1890. Black soldiers became the vaunted Buffalo Soldiers who protected white settlers and tracked down Geronimo. Freed blacks moved west in droves as homesteaders and as cowboys on cattle drives because many white men had been killed or maimed during the war. Black townships sprang up in Oklahoma and Arkansas. Black lawmen like the legendary Bass Reeves were in abundance, especially in Oklahoma and Texas. By 1898, blacks were in a decline (despite their bravery in the Spanish-American War) that would not be reversed until World War I. Surely, Van Peebles could have drawn up a storyline set between 1865 and 1890."Posse" has a lot going for it. It's too bad Mario Van Peebles went for cliches, shootouts and tired storylines meant to sell tickets rather than tell a good story. "Unforgiven" and "Tombstone" showed you can do both.