It's a 1975 movie starring Pam Grier; my thoughts are below:
I was wrong about this film the first time around; long ago I had up a brief review and my rating was lower than it is now after last night’s revisit.
Based on a comic strip that unfortunately went defunct before this even came out, the titular Foster is a plucky fashion photographer who gets wrapped up in a mystery that even its IMDb page describes as “murky.” That is not entirely inaccurate… it revolves around a senator, “the Black Howard Hughes”, Eartha Kitt, Scatman Crothers as a dirty old man who happens to be a preacher, and Yaphet Kotto actually having a chance to cut loose as a private eye. Even if I don’t always love how the plot is presented and there are laughable moments such as “the nation’s capital in February” was mostly “southern California in probably summer” aside from some establishing shots, there is fun to be had.
After all, there are plenty of famous faces… besides the previously-named stars, there’s everyone from Carl Weathers and Thalmus Rasula to Julius Harris and even Jim Backus in a cameo. The action scenes are fun, including a rooftop chase. How I forgot that Foster stole a HEARSE to go after someone then in the final act stole a MILK TRUCK to visit an important place ASAP, that’s beyond me. Then again, the fact that this is a rare motion picture which has a talkbox-centric soundtrack (yes, it rules, especially because it was used with funky-ass music) also went out of my memory long ago.
Even with the carping about the story and some brief unfortunate homosexual stereotypes that are mainly contained to one scene, Friday Foster was better than the credit originally given it by me way back when. As long as you don’t expect something as good as Coffy or Foxy Brown (or something where she kicks a lot of ass; she doesn’t do much of that aside from a hilarious moment involving a milk bottle), this should satisfy many Grier fans.
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