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Truck Turner (1974)

As blackploitation movies go, this is one of the really better ones. Hayes has great screen presence and is in fine form here as a bounty hunter, who you don’t want to push too many of his buttons. I love the start, where he finds his cat has p…ed on another of his shirts. His partner best/friend is a racey talking dude who Hayes coaxs into taking his new sports car on a speed run, and of course he’s pulled over and ticketed, where Hayes smugly says after, “In future you should drive more carefully”. A.k.a Black Bullet, this is good solid rate entertainment. Hayes who of course is Truck Turner, or Truck Mac Turner, if you wanna get more technical, has gone too far with his latest bounty, that has him accidentally killing him. The dead pimp’s girlfriend, who runs her own stable of high class girls, is none too pleased, and puts a bounty on Truck’s head, employing, mob guy acquaintance (Kotto) to take him down. As a madam, she’s a sour, loose tongued ho, a real nasty so and so, describing some of her beauties, with references to finger lickin’ Fried Chicken, and turnpikes. And if you want to leave her stable, girls, you better have one hell of a reason. In the wake of this tragedy. Kotto, even pays his respects by slagging into an open casket containing the poor SOB. How respectful is that. She wants so bad to kill Hayes, where earlier questioned in a salon, surrounded by her beauties, she plays funny buggers, Hayes finding this scene not so funny. I’ve never seen such hostility between cop and madam in this, than I have in other blackploitation movies which gave it a nasty edge about it, I liked. After one ho, knife’s Hayes partner (Weeks) in the back Hayes, he knocks her out than says “Bitch” in a “Damn you” manner. Hayes too has a woman, he really loves, and will do anything to protect her, even if it means setting up for theft and putting her in prison. The last twenty minute revenge part of the film was great, Kotto staggering back to his car, outside a hospital, after killing Weeks, and being shot in the back by Hayes, showing such determination for the black guy. When he steps inside the car, his head hits the horn. Dead. Too, I loved the shootout bit between Hayes and the Madam, where I was rooting for Hayes, always the winner here. If blackploitation movies are your thing, and by high chance, you haven’t seen this-my advice to you. Hunt it down. This one’s a classic, and one with style, plus some of Hayes’s scores, the magic singing voice of a black god, who could act too.