Friday, December 7, 2012

The Spook Who Sat by the Door (1973)

United Artists
Directed by Ivan Dixon
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, Monarch Home Video)

Lawrence Cook is recruited to become the first black CIA agent. He makes it through a rigorous training course and beats out 9 other men for the job. He spends the next 5 years making copies in a basement office. He resigns and heads home to Chicago, where he trains his ex-gang buddies to become urban guerrillas. They take over the streets of south Chicago while splinter sects rebel in other American cities. It plays out like a blaxploitation science fiction film, the final scene implying that they will soon be taking over the country. However, it is dramatically uneven and has too much talk, not enough action.

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