Clevercell Very disappointing...

Baseshment I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Inmechon The movie's only flaw is also a virtue: It's jammed with characters, stories, warmth and laughs.

Quiet Muffin This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

MisterWhiplash Enjoy Bucktown for what it is: a Western stuffed into a Blaxsploitation flick. Think about it, man comes to a small town to bury his brother, he gets people who want to drive him out, he brings in his own people, they get driven out, then they start their own thing. Or perhaps a Blaxsploitation take on Animal Farm, whatever works. At any rate, it is trying to be something a little different than the usual lot of Pimps and Hookers, and, hey, it's got Fred Williamson, it's got Pam Grier, it's got friggin' Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) in a fun supporting role. It's unabashed fun and quasi-guilt-pleasure stuff, if not very filling as a full dramatic experience, and it ends on a fight that is so long somewhere Roddy Piper and Keith David are like "C'mon, man, wrap it up, man!"

MartinHafer WARNING--As with almost all blaxploitation films, this one has nudity, violence and a lot of rough language. This is NOT, I repeat, NOT a film for little kids, the easily offended or house pets. Just don't say I didn't warn you.The first half of this film is pretty standard stuff for a Blaxploitation film. Fred Williamson returns home for his brother's funeral and it's the first time he's been there in many years. He's shocked to see that a bunch of corrupt racist White cops are running the place. Fred is tired of getting the shakedown and hassled, so he brings in some out of town friends to put things right. This is pretty much the same plot as BROTHERHOOD OF DEATH, BOSS *IGGER and even I'M GONNA GET YOU SUCKA. And there aren't too many surprises as to what happens once this small and determined Black army hits town. However, there's a lot more to the film than this--taking the film from the usual to the extraordinary.After the town is saved, slowly the outside "friends" show their true colors. They really aren't that different from the old cops except that they are actually greedier and more cruel!! In other words, nice guy Fred Williamson is now stuck with having to fight the Black criminals--making this film different. In most Blaxploitation, the good guys and the bad guys are predictable--White power structure is evil and Black folks are almost always good (unless they are pimps or dealers working for Mr. Big). Here, however, the idea that power corrupts is illustrated--making for a more universal and deeper message. Now how Williamson responds ain't subtle (it's a lot like Bronson in DEATH WISH 2, 3 or 4) and it's a bit stupid, but it is entertaining.In addition to a better than usual plot, this film has an exceptional cast with Williamson, Pam Greer, Carl Weathers and a lot of other familiar faces. While this style film might not be your "cup of tea", if it is, you can't find one much better than this.

Woodyanders Duke Johnson (superbly played by the almighty Fred Williamson) returns to his Southern home town only to discover that the local corrupt police force rules over the place with an iron fist. Johnson calls on several guys from the big city led by his smooth good buddy Roy (the terrific Thalmus Rasulala) to clean the hamlet up. Unfortunately, Roy and his nasty goons take over the crime racket after they wipe the cops out. Director Arthur Marks, working from a tough, smart and complex script by Bob Ellison, ably creates a hard, starkly amoral tone, maintains a steady pace throughout, and stages the action scenes with considerable brio (a ferocious protracted climactic fight between Duke and Roy rates as a definite exciting highlight). Moreover, the violence is every bit as rough and bloody as it ought to be. The bang-up cast qualifies as another significant asset: Pam Grier as Duke's fiery, sassy old flame Aretha, Tony King as slick sleazeball TJ, Bernie Hamilton as amiable drunk Harley, Art Lund as vice, hateful Chief Patterson, Tierre Turner as brash kid Steve, Morgan Upton as vicious deputy Sam, and Carl Weathers as brutal muscle Hambone. Both Robert Birchall's gritty, yet polished cinematography and Johnny Pate's funky, syncopated score are up to speed. An authentically funky grindhouse nugget.

mrsastor This is easily the most disappointing, least gratifying movie of the entire so-called blacksploitation genre, which, by the way, are films we generally enjoy a great deal in our home. Rather than being "exploitation" or demeaning, these films actually provide a priceless insight into an era. Well, not Bucktown.In this story, Duke returns to Bucktown to operate the night club left to him by his recently deceased brother. He quickly learns that the city is entirely controlled by a corrupt police force, bleeding protection money out of all the local businesses. Duke resists, and determines that he will rescue the city from the corrupt police. Unfortunately, he does so by calling in a posse of his friends (these people are vaguely explained as some former black-militants who have worked with Duke on "jobs" in the past) and they simply murder the entire police department in cold blood. And literally in the presence of hundreds of witnesses who do nothing to stop it. Ignorance is not a justification for murder, and it would have been much more entertaining to see the Cracker Police suffer for their actions as opposed to merely getting whacked in the street. While revenge is a ubiquitous and generally satisfying theme in films of this genre, it is a far cry from seeing Pam Grier track down the thugs who off'ed her family, cuss them out, give them a jujitsu ass-kickin' and set their 'fro on fire. That has art (and a reason for existing) and merits a level of respect that is quite undeserved by simply shooting someone in the back. Of course, in this bizarre tale, she is playing a woman completely under The Man's thumb, afraid of the Crackers who run her town and oppress her people. Indeed, her advice to Duke is, "Run, man, they gonna kill you!"Following the sickening and gratuitous violence, we are expected to believe that the town's mayor wholeheartedly condones the actions of Duke and his friends, congratulating them and offering to throw a parade in their honor, as opposed to, say, calling the district attorney to press capital murder charges against them and have them taken into custody. Duke's posse declines the parade and instead opts to fill the numerous vacancies on the police force created by their recent killing spree. They immediately prove to be even more corrupt than their Cracker Police predecessors (to quote the mayor, "They are ten times worse than what we had before!"). Now Duke finds he must again rescue the citizens of Bucktown from corrupt, protection-racket law enforcement officials and again make it safe for decent folk to operate a prostitution business in the streets. Unfortunately, Duke has already lost all moral high ground and sympathy due a hero, as he was a willing participant in the murder of the original police force. I wouldn't have cared one way or the other if he had rescued Bucktown or gotten plugged himself at this point. I suppose we are to be entertained by the clever way Duke has to outsmart the new Police Goons, but in reality the film has now just become an opera of gratuitous violence, Duke murders all of his former friends and allies in cold blood with the same absence of compassion he had when gunning down the Cracker Police. Duke is a pig.Finally, when everyone in town but Duke, Aretha, and the employees of the local brothel are dead and bleedin' in the street, our hero and heroine walk off into the night as though they had some admirable qualities or redeeming values; they don't. Duke is merely a murderous thug and Aretha his enabling misogynist accomplice. If you are interested in this genre of film, by all means, I highly recommend them, see Coffy, Foxy Brown, Truck Turner, Blacula, Sheba Baby…but if in the process you should run across this DVD, throw it as far away as you possibly can! Drop it like it's hot! It should be treated as one would treat a glowing puddle of nuclear waste! There is no single film in the entire Blacksploitation era that is not dramatically more entertaining, satisfying and populated with more sympathetic and admirable characters than this piece of slime, obviously written by and targeted at some hormonally imbalanced high school sophomores.