A RAGE IN HARLEM

Rip It Up, Issue 191, 1 June 1993, Page 34

A RAGE IN HARLEM

Director: Bill Duke

The pace of Bill Duke's big-screen directorial debut is so fast and furious, I had trouble keeping one step ahead of the action for the first ten minutes or so. This is as hip and sassy a farce as one would wish for, played out in 1950 s Harlem, cleverly recreated in Cincinnati. Centred around thealmost unbelievably glamorous Immabelle (the feline Robin Givens) more often than not introduced with a shot of her undulating derriere, A Rage in Harlem combines a scramble for misbegotten gold with the unrepentant feud of two brothers, Jackson and Goldy. Forrest Whitaker, so touching as the soldier Jody in The Crying Game, playsthe lumbering ingenuous Jackson, an undertaker by trade, who respectfully takes down his pictures of Jesus and a glowering Mama before he loses his virginity to Givens. Gregory Hines is the unctuous Goldy, the scam artist.

The playing is broad, and particularly memorable are Danny Glover's sinuous kingpin Easy Money (forever clutching his security chihuahua), and Zake Mokae's stolid drag queen Big Kathy—a creation that Flip Wilson would have been proud to have called his own. The nudging self-conscious humour of A Rage in Harlem might not be to everyone's taste — perhaps the running joke about the portraits above Whitaker's bed get a little tiresome — but it's the soul of subtlety compared to Hot Shots PartDeuxwhich is looming on the horizon.... WILLIAM DART