Watch This offers movie recommendations inspired by new releases, premieres, current events, or occasionally just our own inscrutable whims. This week: With Cruella coming to theaters and Disney+, we’re looking at some of our favorite extravagant and over-the-top villains from film history.
Truck Turner (1974)
We lost a real one this year when Yaphet Kotto died in March at the age of 81. Kotto was a welcome, commanding presence in anything he appeared in, and he built a enviable body of work: Blue Collar, Alien, The Running Man, Midnight Run, and, of course, Homicide: Life On The Street, where he played Lieutenant Al “Gee” Giardello for seven seasons. Among the earlier highlights of his long career was his turn as villainous pimp Harvard Blue in the Blaxploitation flick Truck Turner. Much like Orson Welles’ Harry Lime in The Third Man, Kotto’s much-discussed antagonist doesn’t make an entrance until halfway through the movie. But it’s quite an entrance: stepping out of a stretch Mercedes-Benz limo at a burial, rocking a fly-ass fur-lapeled white coat, just to spit in the face of the dead rival pimp who’s being buried, before returning to his car.
One of many Shaft knockoffs to hit theaters in the early ’70s, Turner was designed as a vehicle for Isaac Hayes, the man who provided the Oscar-winning soundtrack for the iconic private dick. Unlike Shaft, Hayes’ hero, Mac “Truck” Turner, isn’t cool and sexy. (He is a bad mother, though!) He’s a wisecracking, Coors-swilling, ex-football player-turned-skip tracer who tracks down lowlifes who jump bail. Truck spends most of the first half of his movie slapping fives and cracking jokes with his sidekick, Jerry (Alan Weeks), as they hunt down criminals all over Los Angeles. Amusingly janky, the film includes a lengthy car chase you can tell was filmed early in the morning, so director Jonathan Kaplan could have the streets all to himself.
Technically, Kotto’s Blue isn’t the big bad. That honor goes to Dorinda (Nichelle Nichols, Lieutenant Uhura herself, getting her Eartha Kitt on), a vengeful madam who puts a bounty on Turner’s head for murdering her pimp boyfriend. Blue takes on the job, bringing in an “insurance company” full of hit men (one of them is named after beloved director Joe Dante, who Kaplan had worked with under legendary B-picture producer Roger Corman). Of course, these men are no match for Turner, who occasionally goes after foolish thugs shirtless and wearing a shoulder holster for his trusty .44 Magnum.
Honestly, Turner doesn’t get serious until Kotto shows up. Much like when he took on the bad guy role in Live And Let Die (a.k.a. the 007 movie where James Bond discovers Black people), Kotto plays Blue as a no-nonsense fella who walks softly and carries a big stick (or, in this case, a pimp cane). Kotto allegedly took on the role because he was going through a divorce and needed the money, but he nonetheless gives it his all, providing some convincing, sharp-dressed menace to a movie where everyone else on screen (Hayes, especially) is clearly half-assing it. Kotto also delivers—spoiler alert—one very dramatic death scene. As critic Matt Zoller Seitz wrote in a remembrance of Kotto, “It’s a seven-course meal of grandiosity, a demise worthy of James Cagney or Al Pacino. He limps, staggers, falls, gets back up and stumbles all the way out into the street and tries to get behind the wheel of a car and drive away. The entire time you get the sense of a man coming to terms with the fact that he’s been beaten, that this is truly the end. You can see it by looking into Kotto’s eyes.” It’s a spectacular reminder that the man always understood the assignment.
Availability: Truck Turner is currently streaming on Pluto TV (with ads). It can also be rented or purchased digitally through Amazon.
29 Comments
This movie is mediocre at best, but damn, the soundtrack by Isaac Hayes is absolutely killer!Overall, it’s a better soundtrack than Shaft. Pursuit of the Pimp Mobile is epic funk
I will respectfully disagree about the movie but wholeheartedly concur about the soundtrack, it is boss.
It’s easily one of the best blaxpoitation movies. Great dialogue and characters, stylishly filmed, lots of surprising / entertaining moments. Literally the only weakness to me is the chase, which is typical of ‘70s movies but goes on a little too long.
I’ll fight you on the merits of the music of Truck Turner v Shaft- the finale of Shaft is some breathtaking music no matter what genre you file it under.Truck Turner is reasonably stylish with a couple standout performances, and an interesting tour of LA circa 1974.
Y’all forgot the Watch This tag again.
Oh hell yes, Truck Turner rules. The movie moves along just fine before he enters, it’s a lot of fun as a “life of a private eye/bounty hunter” kind of thing and could’ve stayed in that vein and still have been a good time, but Kotto kicks everything up. “I’m going to go father some orphans” — great exit line, or greatest exit line of all time? Man, I rewatched this after he died and now I want to see it again, endless rewatchability here.
Yay, my favorite blaxploitation flick! Nichelle Nichols is so hilariously foul-mouthed that the film suffers after her character exits.
Oscar worthy
I’ve always been aware of this film, and it’s one of those “How the hell did I never get around to watching this?” movies for me. I had no idea about that line. I aint even mad it’s spoiled on me. I’ve never used Pluto, but I don’t mind some ads. Will be checking this out this weekend in a state of mild to active insobriety.
Can strongly recommend watching in that state! And sorry about spoiling that line but there are many, many others awaiting you.
He was so great on Homicide, even with that great cast & some all time great cop characters on that show, everything revolved around his leadership, intense but compassionate
Possibly my favorite single thing ever on the show was Gee’s reaction to Pemberton’s salute at Crosetti’s funeral
And now I wonder how much Andre Braugher in conveying Holt’s gravitas on Brooklyn 99 drew on his experience of working with Kotto as Gee
I still don’t understand why B99 hasn’t done a HLOTS gag yet.
The title “The Box” from season 5 is a reference to Homicide: Life On the Streets. I’m pretty certain that it’s also in this episode that Holt describes his interrogation technique to Peralta where Andre Braugher is doing a Frank Pembleton bit.
Season 5 is not available legally where I live yet. Thanks!
Whelp! At least it’s not much of a spoiler.
Your abbreviation makes me wonder if Holt’s name isn’t a gag in itself.
Nice catch.
I feel like Scully and Hitchcock are working towards giving themselves a stroke like Frank, they’re just doing it the slower, more delicious way. That counts, right?
Dammit, I thought this was gonna be about Bone. This looks good, though…
Kotto has a nice role in one of the relatively lighter blaxploitation movies – “Friday Foster.” He’s basically Pam Grier’s sidekick in that. He and the movie are very fun.
This is my definition of a “Big Bad.”
Live and Let Die was always one of my least favorite Bond films, but Kotto was one of the best villians ever.
You call this “half-ass”???:
I thought this was going to be about Live and Let Die before I opened the article.
A terrific movie! I disagree about nobody but Kotto giving their all, though. Nichelle Nichols certainly brings it, as does the great Dick Miller, sporting his trademark pink blazer and talking a mile a minute.
That death scene is absolutely amazing. Carrying a kid in a hospital during a shootout? I’d like to think that John Woo got the inspiration for that scene in Hard Boiled from here and then turned it on its head.