Director Gordon Parks Jr. followed up his feature-film debut of Superfly with Three the Hard Way, which brings together three blaxploitation stars Jim Brown (Slaughter), Fred Williamson (Hammer), and Jim Kelly (Black Belt Jones) battling against a neo-Nazi organization that plans to kill off the black population of the United States. Although not playing the same characters, the uniting of genre stars for such a large story brings to mind The Avengers decades before superheroes ruled the box office.
Buy Three the Hard Way Blu-rayRecord producer Jimmy Lait (Brown) find his friend House (Junero Jennings) wounded after escaping an underground medical facility. Jimmy sets him House in the hospital under the watch of his girlfriend Wendy (Sheila Frazier) and heads to studio to work with the Impressions who have three songs on the soundtrack. The bad guys kill House and kidnap Wendy.
Needing help, Jimmy goes to Chicago to get his friend Jagger (Williamson), and they head to New York to pick up Mister Keyes (Kelly), who seems like he is in the middle of a separate movie when first seen as the cops plant cocaine in his car but he is able to use his martial arts skills to whoop them.
The trio drive off (with a large bag of cocaine that isn’t referenced again) and end up at a car wash. Inexplicably, a group of rather inept bad guys are there waiting for them. Jimmy gets shot, and all but main henchman Keep (Howard Platt) ends up killed. Jagger has a trio of topless dominatrixes torture Keep, who reveals Monroe Feather (Jay Robinson) has financed the plan to kill millions of blacks in three major cities.
Unsure of what the plan is, they split up with Jimmy going back to Los Angeles, Mister Keyes going to Washington, D.C., and Jagger going to Detroit. Back in L.A., Jimmy learns of the plan to poison the public water supply and warns the others, interrupting Jimmy spending time with a lady friend. After successfully working apart, they reunite and arm themselves to attack Feather’s compound.
Long available at an 89-minute runtime, Three the Hard Way has been restored to its original runtime of 97 minutes on this Blu-ray. Created from a 4K scan of the original negative, the video has been given a 1080p/MPEG-4 AVC encoded transfer displayed at the original aspect ratio of 1.85:1. Colors appears in solid hues. The image offers a good contrast. Whites are bright and accurate. Blacks are inky. Some of the scenes have poor shadow delineations where object attributes get swallowed, as seen in the car battle with Jimmy and the bad guys. Film grain is apparent and increases during some exterior shots. The image is clean, free of dirt and damage.
The audio is available in DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono. Dialogue is clear. The songs and score by the Impressions has good fidelity. The action effects, including gunfire and explosions, are loud, bordering on distorting.
The only special feature is the trailer
Three the Hard Way is an entertaining film packed with so many action sequences it makes up for what little characterization Eric Bercovici and Jerrold L. Ludwig’s script provides, as does the charm of the three lead actors, who would reunite in the Spaghetti Western Take a Hard Ride (1975) and blaxploitation film One Down, Two to Go (1982). The Warner Archive Collection Blu-ray delivers a satisfying high-def presentation.
