Disco Godfather (1979)

The fourth and last of Rudy Ray Moore's seventies starring vehicles, Disco Godfather (1979) represents something of a change of pace for Moore.  Gone is his usual 'Dolemite' persona, as is the usual stream of gags delivered in rhyme in favour of what seems, at first at least, an attempt at a more serious approach.  This time around, Rudy Ray is Tucker Williams, retired cop turned nightclub owner, the self-styled 'Disco Godfather', who is forced to exchange busting hot disco moves for crime fighting when drug sealers target his family.  After his nephew Bucky, an up and coming basket ball player, ODs on 'Angel Dust' and is hospitalised, Tucker declares war on this new blight upon his local community.  While on the one hand supporting various local anti-drug campaigns via his club, he also invokes his police reserve status, teaming up with his former boss to fight the drug suppliers on the streets.  Disco Godfather really is a curious collision of elements, clearly inspired by the popularity of the Disco craze, as epitomised by Saturday Night Fever (1977), the film's opening features Tucker, bedecked in white Disco gear, first of all DJ'ing at his club, ('Put your weight on it!'), before getting down on the floor to show off his moves, before quickly seguing into a social drama about the evils of drugs, finally morphing into an action-orientated crime flick.  That these elements sit together uneasily is to put it mildly.

The sermonising anti-drug messages of the sequences following Bucky's OD, with Tucker visiting him in hospital and being shown the various half-crazed long term 'Angel Dust' victims there by the head doctor feel particularly awkward in the context of the overall film.  Nevertheless, there is a genuine sincerity to these messages - Moore is clearly passionate about his cause here.  Tucker's concerns for the corrosive effects of these new synthetic drugs on his community are obviously impassioned.  This is the other side of the real Rudy Ray Moore: while his public persona might have been that of the brash 'Dolemite', a comedian who fearlessly delivered explicit and forthright material, in private he often spoke at his local church and took his mother to the National Baptist Convention.  This was a man genuinely concerned for his community, (it is notable that, even as 'Dolemite', in his films the character always seems to take time out from the pimping, shooting and bonking to right some wrongs in the community).  Sincere as he might be in his concerns, though, Tucker wastes no time in taking drastic action against the drug dealers.

The final part of the film sees  Rudy Ray return to familiar territory, as he Kung Fu kicks his way through various thugs and dealers, rousts pimps and prostitutes and dodges hitmen as unmasks a corrupt cop and finally penetrates the drug boss's 'Angel Dust' lab.  The fights are every bit as crazy as those in his earlier films, with Tucker single-handedly taking on henchmen by the dozen - just when it looks like he might be faltering, karate champion Howard Jackson (a regular in Moore's films, both as performer and fight arranger), just happens to be passing and offers him a hand.  'This as an 'Angel Dust' lab!' Rudy tells him. 'Great', replies Howard, 'let's kick some ass!'.  Just to add to the film's general weirdness, we are also treated to some truly bizarre 'trip' sequences, as Bucky and other victims suffer nightmarish hallucinations involving demons and ghosts.  Indeed, the climactic fight between Tucker and his associates and the gang at the 'Angel Dust' lab is intercut with scenes of the mother of one of the patients at the hospital trying to cure her daughter's addiction via exorcism, just to make the whole scenario even more surreal.  Finally, Tucker finds himself exposed to 'Angel Dust' by the bad guys and suffers a bad trip.

During this, he suffers highly traumatic hallucinations of his mother, but nonetheless keeps fighting, finally getting his hands on the gang boss, seeing him as a demon, attempting to throttle him to death before the intervention of a recovered Bucky.  These final trip scenes are enhanced with some animated psychedelic effects, rendering them even weirder.  By the end of the film, the early club sequences, with patrons getting down to those funky disco beats under the strobe lights, have receded far into the background, such is the shift in tone.  Despite the wild trips sequences and Kung Fu fights, as the film goes on, it becomes increasingly grim, with the hospital scenes, senseless murders of innocent victims and, finally, Tucker, although triumphant, still in the grip of his bad trip, screaming 'There's nothing wrong with me!' as the hospital ward beckons.  Unfortunately, the drama serves to show up Moore's limits as a dramatic actor, with him failing to convince in many of the later scenes.  To be fair, quite a lot of the performances are shaky, betraying the film's limited resources. That said, despite a low budget, the film itself has reasonable production values, the club scenes, in particular, looking good with nicely filmed and co-ordinated dance sequences.  The direction of one-time director J. Robert Wagoner isn't as solid as that of Cliff Rocquemore, who had directed the previous two Rudy Ray Moore vehicles, with a somewhat uneven pace, but is nonetheless efficient enough to keep things moving.

In the end, the biggest problem with the film is Rudy Ray Moore himself.  By the time he filmed Disco Godfather, he was in his early fifties and looks it.  His dancefloor scenes are uncomfortable to watch, like seeing someone's dad trying to 'get down with the kids' at the school disco.  While to, some extent, the fact that he is obviously middle aged helps some of the scenes of him in contemplative, world weary mode as Tucker begins to despair at the effects of drugs on his community, it also undermines, not just the dance sequences, but also the action sequences.  While we were willing to accept that Blaxploitation superman 'Dolemite' might be capable of these fantastical feats of martial arts, they just don't feel credible when being carried out by a more 'realistic' character.  Which isn't to say that Disco Godfather isn't entertaining.  While never hitting the heights of the sort of wildness seen in his, often anarchic, earlier films, it is still full of memorable scenes, with the slide into sheer whackiness in the last third providing an unforgettable experience.  The problem is that the elements just don't gel properly.  Nevertheless it still represents an interesting attempt on Rudy Ray Moore's part to break away from his established screen persona and formulas and try something slightly different and, indeed, more ambitious.