As the 70’s drew to a close and the era of flared trousers, crushed velvet and funk was slowly echoed out of the room, Rudy Ray Moore would have one final big roll of the cinematic dice…and like Icarus, I fear he may have flown too close to the sun with this one.

‘Disco Godfather’ is in essence an extended PSA film about the dangers of Cocaine (euphamistically referred to throughout this film as ‘Angel Dust’) Moore plays ‘Tucker Williams’ one of the best DJ’s in town and headline act (and owner) of the ‘Blueberry hill’ the most happeningist nightclub in town! But theres a problem, pushers on the streets are getting kids scagged up on the devils marching powder, and when a near death experience happens RIGHT on the Blueberry hills doorstep, Tucker has to reconnect with his ex-cop roots to learn more about the deadly narcota, who’s supplying it, and to ultimatley put an end to the pushers, before the pushers put an end to him!

And…you’d think on paper ‘Rudy Ray Moore does an extended PSA against drug use’ Featuring crazy hallucination sequences, poor kung-fu and disco bopping hits would be a perfect combination for me…But honestly? I really just didnt gel with it.

For a starters the script takes all the WORST excesses from the first couple of dolemite films and drags them to the forefront of this production kicking and screaming. Its essentially just endless nightclub scenes, intercut with VERY serious dramatic numbers and the thinnest THINNEST skim of comedy i’ve seen in a long time.

As such, we’re RIGHT back into the tonal issues that plagued the first two Dolemite pictures as a result…With the production trying to both be INCREDIBLY serious and dower about a very serious issue LITERALLY killing people in real life…but not wanting to be SO dark that they kill, what is ultimately a comedians vibe vehical. It just cant balance the two tones for me, and winds up being weirdly lumpy and simultaineously too depressing to be entertaining and too unfunny to really keep me hanging on. The endless nightclub scenes only worsen things for me, and after seeing ‘Petey Wheatstraw’ I honestly cant believe we’re back to quality like this after it felt like so much progress had been made.

The act structuring is to the wall, we have a VERY brief first act which then just…basically gives way to sludge. the vast VAST majority of the runtime is stuck in the 2nd act with Tucker basically going site to site, doing a bit of awkward kung-fu…which…we’re 4 films in now, it was funny in the first film, titter worthy in the second and kind of ‘Done’ by the 3rd…here its positively grating. which is then followed up by either PSA style drama scenes showing Angel dust victims…or jive-esq nightclub scenes that did nothing for me.

The characters are all back to being one notw, with only Tucker getting any kind of further complexities…but those complexities dont ACTUALLY get picked up on until 10 minutes off the end…Oh! and thats also conveniently where the 3rd act just about starts.

The pacings SO slow, with only a half garbled finale offering anything in the way of ACTUAL interesting content. But the film ends pretty open ended and abruptly…which was a dissapointment and ultimately I just really struggled with the writing ont his one, the dialogues less memorable, the deliveries arnt great. theres a couple of solid hallucination sequences…but thats about it.

The vast majority of my rating here is going into technical ability on the part of the direction and cine. This looks like a relatively solid small studio picture. and is a nice further upgrade from ‘Petey’ and a whole different planet from ‘Dolemite’ we have creative direction utilising solid and creative lighting choices, track and dolly shots for the first time, creative composition, actual planned for the camera choreography on the nightclub scenes (not just filming an act that happened to be performing that night) the cast direction is equally solid offering decent use of the set space, character markers and solid prop usage.

I do feel b-roll is a little lacking in this one, but to compensate we get some interesting coloured lighting usage and, a bit of a first some basic attempts at rotoscoping and practical post production effects. Which definitely only enhances the viewing experience. Compositions alright, but a little uninspiring for sequence construction. I dont feel like the edit itself is as strong as ‘Petey’ either…But on the whole I’d say its probably the most cinematic looking Rudy Ray Moore film, and certainly the one that showcases the strongest technical proficiency.

Unfortunately its downhill again from there, the performances from all cast members (Moore included) feel forced, flat and fairly lifeless. This for me is really the first time where its felt like Rudy wanted in on an idea until it was actually time to do it, because he looks so tired and uninterested for most of this films runtime. The supporting cast are doing their best ‘Am-Dram’ presentations, but its just not enough, the whole thing feels like an exercise and a chore, rather than something im actively supposed to be enjoying.

Add to that a fairly mediocre soundtrack that really doesnt lift the film at all AND the obvious fact that, by 1979; Disco *was technically* still going, but was creatively basically dying. and you have a film that feels ill timed, unwanted and largely is pretty uninspiring.

I didnt really have a great time with ‘Disco Godfather’ I just kind of found it a bit boring and repetative, playing on the worst tropes of Rudys other movies and offering very little ‘new’ material from what had come before it. Its a bit of a whimper to end this 4 film/4 year journey unfortunately…If this was your first exposure to Rudy Ray Moores work, i’d heartily recommend ‘Petey Wheatstraw’ and ‘The Human Tornado’ as two examples of some of his greater works…As for this? It’ll be a while before im back to this one again…

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/disco-godfather/1/