The Big Score (1983)

This movie was further down on my to review list, but when I did Blood Street with Stack Pierce, who's also in this, I realized it had been a while since I'd done a Fred Williamson flick, and I'm always saying I need to do more Williamson, so why not bump it up the list and make it happen? In addition to us, our friend Mitch at the Video Vacuum has covered this, as has the great Roger Ebert, so you can go to their sites to see what they thought.

The Big Score is a Williamson Po' Boy Production where Williamson plays, you guessed it, a hard-nosed Chicago cop. In trying to take down a coke kingpin with fellow detectives John Saxon and Richard Roundtree, the baddie gets let loose through the work of his slick lawyer, and Williamson is under fire when the drug dealer's money goes missing. Now the baddies want their money back, and while the cops sort out what happen to it, boss Ed Lauter takes Williamson off the force, but for a cop like him, getting taken off the force is only a minor impediment. He's going to use all his resources, and stop at nothing to take down this baddie and get those drugs off the Chicago streets.

 

As you can tell from the synopsis, this is a pretty paint-by-numbers Williamson cop action thriller, but between the cast, and the story and direction, this worked for me. Williamson is a bit grittier here, I think he's going for more of a Chicago gritty cop story, and while I love cool as the other side of the pillow Williamson, this gritty Williamson works as a change of pace. John Saxon and Richard Roundtree are no strangers to this kind of movie either, and help fill out the vibe Williamson was going for, which makes it more authentic. At the same time, this is still fun Williamson, maybe not to the level of fun of his Dakota "Dak" Smith or Black Cobra movies, but I also think this might be a better quality of movie than those are. Either way, this is worth it for a nice Williamson night.

With this film, Williamson is now in a very exclusive club here at the DTVC, the 20-10 Club for people who have starred in 20+ films and directed 10+ films. How exclusive? Williamson is the only member. (If you're wondering, I think Dolph is the next closest, with his 60+ acting credits on the site, and 7 so far directed.) According to IMDb, Williamson has 20 films he's directed (plus one more that's been announced), and I think I've seen 13 or 14 of them--it would be more, but the version of Adios Amigos on Tubi is horrible, Vinegar Syndrome or a similar outlet needs to do a boxed set of his Westerns to correct that--but I'm digressing here, the point is, I think after Mean Johnny Barrows, which was his directorial debut, this might be my second favorite of his directed films that I've seen, which makes it a fitting one to make him the inaugural member of the 20-10 Club. The other big milestone for him is the 30 Club, and with this review he's now 5 away from that. I think for someone of his stature in the DTV world, that's a milestone that's long overdue, so hopefully we'll get there soon for him.

One of the biggest selling points in a Williamson film is the names he's managed to corral for it, and this one is no exception. Of those names, Richard Roundtree is one I always enjoy seeing. In the 80s he was pigeonholed by Hollywood into a "blaxploitation star," which gave Hollywood an excuse to not cast him as a leading man, despite the fact that he had the screen presence to rival any of the white leading men who were popular at that time. I think there's a sense when Williamson casts him in one of his lower-budget films that he also thinks "I shouldn't be able to get this guy in my movies, he should be too big for them." In 1983, we were a good ten to fifteen years out from names like Denzel Washington and Will Smith finally getting the kinds of roles Roundtree should've gotten. While we had him here though, one scene I really liked was where he acted opposite Stack Pierce. It was great to see those two in a scene together.

Among the other names, there were a bunch. I mentioned John Saxon, Stack Pierce, and Ed Lauter above. We also had Nancy Wilson, D'Urville Martin, Frank Pesce, Michael Dante, and Joe Spinell. Those kinds of names get us by when the Williamson film is lacking due to budgetary constraints, etc., so when the film is more solid like this one is, it just enhances it that much more. John Saxon in particular was great here, as he was made for grittier police films, usually as a baddie, but in this case a good guy as one of Williamson's fellow detectives. This is only his fifth film on the site, which sounds low, but as I was looking over his IMDb bio, that's actually about right based on the movies he's done. I don't know that I'll specifically look to get more of his films on here, but seeing his name on the tin always helps in picking out a movie to watch.

 

As I mentioned above, Roger Ebert also reviewed this, and while he only gave it 2 and a 1/2 stars, he actually enjoyed it. One mistake he made in his write-up is he confused Three the Hard Way with its sequel, One Down, Two to Go, but I got what he was saying when he compared this with that movie. I think we have this idea that the more mainstream critics don't get the stuff we watch, and for some that may be true, but Ebert showed in his review of this one that, at least for him, he can enjoy anything that's good and give it a fair shake. For me personally, I don't consider myself to be a film critic, but rather a movie blogger, whose only training was the writing courses I took in college--which themselves don't always show through when I'm pumping out a review with only one read through before I publish it--so I don't see myself as trying to swim in the same pond as an Ebert; but it is interesting how blogging, and now social media and podcasting, have democratized the film critique and discussion space to such an extent that I'm on IMDb and I'm seeing Roger Ebert's reviews mixed in with mine and fellow bloggers/reviewers that I've become friends with through this process. When I was a kid watching him with Gene Siskel, I never could've imagined that there would be things like blogs or an IMDb that could have allowed for that possibility.

And with that, let's wrap this up. As of right now, this is only available on YouTube and DVD, which is good enough, but hopefully it'll get the higher quality release it deserves. This is a solid Williamson outing, and worth checking out, especially if you're looking for more Williamson to watch.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085245

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